Second case of Centaurus variant detected in Korea

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Second case of Centaurus variant detected in Korea

Published: 21 Jul. 2022, 17:33 Updated: 21 Jul. 2022, 19:11

Travelers get tested for Covid-19 at a testing center at Incheon International Airport on Thursday.[NEWS1]

Korea confirmed its second case of the Omicron subvariant BA.2.75 — nicknamed Centaurus — which is known to be more resistant to immunity than its predecessors.

The provincial government of North Chungcheong announced Thursday that it has detected the BA.2.75 variant in a non-Korean resident in their 30s.

The patient arrived in Korea from India on July 5 and tested positive for Covid-19 on July 7. This is earlier than the country’s first confirmed BA.2.75 case, who was confirmed to be infected with the BA.2.75 strain July 14 after testing positive on July 11.

Health authorities said an epidemiological investigation is underway to find out whether there are additional infections tied to the foreign patient.

“Whole genome sequencing of virus variants after random sampling usually takes up to 10 days to come to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA), and then takes five to seven days to be analyzed,” explained Ko Jae-young, a spokesperson for the KDCA, during a press briefing on Thursday.

“In this case, it took seven days for the viral sample to be checked and arrive at the KDCA, and another seven days for analysis — taking a total of two weeks,” Ko added.

On July 14, Korea confirmed its first case of BA.2.75. The patient was a Korean national in his 60s living in Incheon. The man had no recent travel record, raising the possibility that the strain was already prevalent in the local community.

BA.2.75 has eight more spike protein mutations compared to the BA.2 variant or Stealth Omicron, which means that it binds to cells more effectively and evades antibodies formed by vaccines. It appears to spread even faster and evade vaccine-acquired immunity better than BA.5, which is now the dominant variant in Korea.

After being discovered in India for the first time in late May, BA.2.75 is spreading in more than 10 countries including Europe and the United States. In India, BA.2.75 caused 7.9 percent of cases on June 20, which increased to 51.35 percent in the following week.

Cases of the BA.2.75 variant only add to worries over Korea’s coming Covid-19 wave which is being fueled by the BA.5 variant.

Korea added 71,170 new Covid-19 infections on Thursday, according to the KDCA data, which was the third straight day for cases to stay above 70,000. The total caseload was raised to 19,009,080.

The country again reported week-on-week doubling of Covid-19 cases. Thursday’s figure was 1.8 times larger than the previous week's and 3.8 times larger than two weeks ago.

A nationwide study led by the KDCA of 10,000 Koreans to be tested for Covid-19 antibodies is to begin next week, and results are expected to be announced in early September, health authorities announced Thursday.

“The antibody test will analyze the antibodies induced by natural Covid infections to determine the exact size of the infected patient pool,” said Kim Dong-hyun, a professor at Hallym University College of Medicine, who heads the test. “We are planning to check the history of infection, vaccination, and underlying diseases [for all respondents].”

BY SEO JI-EUN [seo.jieun1@joongang.co.kr]