COVID-19: What are BA.4, BA.5 sub-variant and how bad are they? Know all here as Mumbai reports cases

Three cases of BA.4 and one of BA.5 Omicron sub-variants of coronavirus were found in Mumbai, informed Maharashtra health department.

According to the report, all these patients were found to be positive between 14th May to 24th May 2022, out of which two are 11-year-old girls and two are males in age group of 40-60 years

What are BA.4, BA.5 sub-variant and how bad they are?

BA.4 and BA.5 are sub-variants of the highly-transmissible Omicron variant of the virus.

BA.4 and BA.5 are sub-variants of the Omicron variant circulating globally. These were first reported from South Africa earlier this year and are now being reported from several other countries.

All these patients have been cured in home isolation, the report further said.

On Saturday, a 37-year-old man was tested positive for BA.5 sub-variant of the Omicron strain. The patient was diagnosed with COVID-19 on June 2.

He had mild symptoms of the disease and was cured at home isolation.

The patient had arrived from England on May 21 and had taken both doses of the Covishield vaccine.

Earlier, Maharashtra had reported its first cases of the COVID-19 infection with BA.4 and BA.5 sub-variants of the Omicron strain of the virus in at least seven cases in Pune.

India had reported the first case of BA.4 sub-variant from Hyderabad earlier and later the Indian SARS-CoV2 Genomics Consortium had confirmed the detection of cases with BA.4 and BA.5 sub-variants in Tamil Nadu and Telangana.

Meanwhile, Maharashtra today recorded 1,885 fresh COVID-19 cases, taking the number of active cases to 17,480. Besides, 1 COVID-19 death was reported in the day, taking the tally to 1,47,871.

(With inputs from PTI)