Morocco’s first case of the Omicron variant that authorities say has mutated locally is a long shot, suspects virology expert Mustapha Naji, who told Hespress EN that the 30 years-old woman who made it to national headlines as the country’s first case is likely to have been in contact with a zero case who brought in the variant from abroad.
“Only the upcoming days will prove or disprove this hypothesis,” the director of the virology laboratory at Hassan II University said – meaning that if new Omicron cases pop up in the next days amongst unconnected groups of people, chances would increase that a zero case existed in Morocco prior to when authorities announced the first case on Dec.15.
“The unknown case zero has probably been in contact with different people in the country, and perhaps it is still spreading the highly contagious variant around,” said Naji.
Little detail has been given by the health ministry on the 1st Omicron patient, with government officials falling back on dovish language to deter public fluster.
But statements such as those made by the Government spokesman claiming “over a 100 mutation of covid-19 happens daily in Morocco,” are adding to the commotion built up by the pandemic for the last two years, and made more baffling by the appearance of Omicron.
Recourse to scientific elucidation is needed. Naji says it is consequential to differentiate between a mutant and variant, that the two words are not interchangeable. Understanding the difference could also shed light on the nature of the country’s first case of Omicron.
The genetic material of SARS-CoV-2 that causes COVID-19 is called ribonucleic acid (RNA). To replicate, and therefore establish infection, the RNA must hijack a host cell and use the cell’s machinery to duplicate itself.
During this process, errors often occur, which results in viruses that are similar but not exact copies of the original virus, as it would be highly unusual if all SARS-CoV-2 viruses around the world were identical in every one of their 30,000 RNA bases.
These errors in the genetic material RNA are called mutations, and viruses with these mutations are called variants. However, not all mutations have the same effect.
The basis of SARS-CoV-2 genetic code is RNA. This code is similar to a blueprint on which an organism is built. When a mutation occurs at a single point, it will not necessarily change any of the building blocks.
“On occasion, these mutations occur in a part of the virus RNA that causes a change in a particular building block, which gives us a variant: a group of mutations that we can identify as something unique,” said Dr.Naji.
The virologist said it might be true that many mutations took place in Morocco along the two years long pandemic, since the virus mutated more than 400 times, however finding in Morocco an identical variant to the one that has been found in South Africa, Omicron, is implausible.
Even though many experts, including Dr. Naji, assert that the Omicron variant has mild symptoms, the emergence of the new variant pushed the world back to lockdowns and curfews.
“Omicron is not dangerous itself. However it can mutate to become completely resistant to current antibodies, which we call an immunity escape,” said the director of the virology laboratory at Hassan II University, as he stressed the importance of respecting health measures, avoiding crowded places, and getting inoculated.
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