Nurmat Otabekov warns citizens about possible penetration of omicron strain’s sub-variant “centaurus” into the country

On July 7, the World Health Organization announced that a sub-variant of the omicron BA.2.75 or “centaurus” strain was developing. This sub-variant was named after a galaxy in the constellation “centaurus” at the suggestion of one of the Internet users. According to experts quoted by Euronews, it could become the dominant option after omicron.

“It doesn’t really matter what the strain is called. They are all coronaviruses. Viruv can take on a new form and appearance every month. According to experts, the transmission tendency of “centaurus” is rather high. It can make many people sick at the same time. Even a person infected with another type of omicron can be infected with this virus,” he noted.

Nurmat Otabekov did not exclude the possibility that the “centaurus” has already entered Uzbekistan: “Citizens of Uzbekistan can now be anywhere in the world. From this point of view, the virus may have entered Uzbekistan during the latent period of the disease”.

Regarding the need to develop a new vaccine, he noted that since the discovery of the new SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, which is considered the causative agent of COVID-19 in humans, almost 17,000 mutations of this virus have been identified.

“There is no need to produce a vaccine for all of these. The vaccine used against coronavirus itself protects against these diseases. In this regard, there is no need for additional vaccine production. Vaccination with existing vaccines and vaccination with a booster dose is enough,” he said.