Frontiers in Genetics (Apr 2022)

Case Report: Omicron BA.2 Subvariant of SARS-CoV-2 Outcompetes BA.1 in Two Co-infection Cases

  • Marija Gjorgjievska,
  • Sanja Mehandziska,
  • Aleksandra Stajkovska,
  • Slavica Pecioska-Dokuzovska,
  • Anica Dimovska,
  • Idriz Durmish,
  • Sara Ismail,
  • Teodora Pavlovska,
  • Antonija Stojchevska,
  • Haris Amedi,
  • Jasna Andonova,
  • Marija Nikolovska,
  • Sara Velickovikj,
  • Zan Mitrev,
  • Ivan Kungulovski,
  • Goran Kungulovski

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fgene.2022.892682
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 13

Abstract

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Trends from around the world suggest that the omicron BA.2 subvariant is increasing in proportion to the original BA.1 subvariant. Here we report two cases of co-infection with omicron BA.1 and omicron BA.2 in co-exposed individuals. In both individuals, genome sequencing and/or S-gene specific PCR identified omicron BA.1 at early time-points, which was replaced by omicron BA.2 at later time-points of the infection. The timeline of our data supports the proposition that BA.2 outcompetes BA.1 in a real-life scenario, and in time becomes the dominant variant in the upper respiratory tract of the host.

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