TEHRAN – Omicron BA4 and BA5 variants may soon dominate the country, Masoud Younesian, secretary of the epidemiology and research committee of the national scientific committee to deal with coronavirus, has said.

Pointing out that COVID-19 hospitalizations and outpatients have tripled in recent days in the country, he said that the probability of increasing transmission during the next week is relatively high.

Despite the fact that the BA2 subvariant of Omicron and its subtypes have been dominant in the world, now for several weeks in a row, BA4 and BA5, which started in the African continent, then went to America and other parts of the world, are increasing.

Of course, maybe it has not prevailed yet, and it is still dominated by BA2. Therefore, currently, the share of BA4 and BA5 cases in the world has increased and these two variants are more averse to vaccines, he stated.

In the first week of the Iranian calendar month of Tir which began on June 25, COVID-19 hospitalizations and outpatients have tripled in the country. In the rest of the countries, which had the same situation as us, they had a peak with a height of one-fifth to one-sixth compared to the main peak of Omicron. That is, if at the peak of our omicron we reached 20,000 infections per day, now it is not far from the expectation that our daily infection numbers will reach four digits, and double-digit deaths are also not far from expectation and unfortunately there is a possibility of that.

To prevent the new wave, we should still use masks in closed spaces, especially those without ventilation. At the same time, it would be very helpful if people who have not received the vaccine are banned from gatherings, closed places, etc., he suggested.

According to the official statistics, about 20 to 25 percent of eligible people in the society did not inject the coronavirus vaccine at all, and between 30 to 35 percent only injected a dose of the vaccine, who is called the vulnerable population.

In the first week of the Iranian calendar month of Tir which began on June 25, COVID-19 hospitalizations and outpatients have tripled in the country.

Also, unfortunately, a total of 11 patients died last week. Based on this, the total number of deaths from this disease has reached 141,390 people.

However, on Saturday, no covid-related mortalities were reported across the country.

Iran has been able to reduce the COVID mortalities from 700 cases to less than 10, and this successful experience of the Islamic Republic was made known in the seventy-fifth session of the World Health Assembly, Health Minister Bahram Einollahi said on May 27.

So far, about 150 million doses of vaccine have been injected into the Iranian population and the coverage of vaccination in the total population is about 75 percent, he highlighted.

Following the decision of the National Headquarters for Coronavirus Control and President Ebrahim Raisi, all universities affiliated with the ministries of science and health, and schools, started education in person on April 3 as the new cases of the disease have notably reduced.

The successful experience of the Islamic Republic of Iran in controlling the coronavirus pandemic was made known in the seventy-fifth session of the World Health Assembly.

FB/MG