MOH: No Omicron cases in Iraq

INA - BAGHDAD

Ministry of Health announced that it is in the process of raising a recommendation to prevent travel to South Africa and countries that have recorded cases with the Omicron virus, while it confirmed that it has not recorded any cases in Iraq so far, as it pointed out that the new mutant virus is rapidly spreading.

“The new Omicron strain is described as the most dangerous by experts, and the World Health Organization considered it as “worrying”, because the mutations that were discovered in it carrying new mutations with Corona strains, arrived  For (32) mutations in (spike protein) responsible for causing damage to the affected human body,” said the Director General of Public Health at the Ministry of Health, Riyad Abdel Amir, to Al-Iraqiya News, followed by the Iraqi News Agency (INA).

He added, "Because of this development, the shape of the mutant is expected to change, so it may be difficult for vaccines to detect it, and also its main danger lies in the fact that infections in the affected places have increased by ten times due to the Omicron mutant because the transmission of infection is very fast,”

"The new mutant and the previous one afflicts everyone, and we are now waiting for the results of the health reports. Is the new mutant the most dangerous to humans and the most virulent? This matter will become clear in the coming days,” he noted.

He pointed out that "vaccine production companies are conducting studies to learn their effectiveness with the new mutant that also infected vaccinated people, because they may reconsider the vaccines if their effectiveness is proven to be ineffective, and perhaps after two or three weeks the picture becomes clear,”

“The lab of the Ministry of Health is to monitor the mutant to analyze the results of the tests of those coming to Iraq and the dangerous cases," he included, stressing, “Currently, no case of the Omicron strain has been discovered in Iraq, and we have not recorded any, as it was discovered in South Africa and some Western countries,”