WHO chief scientist urges people not to panic over Omicron

APD NEWS

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The World Health Organization's (WHO) chief scientist told the Reuters Next conference on Friday that people should not panic over the emergence of the Omicron coronavirus variant and said it was too early to say if vaccines would need to be reworked.

"We need to be prepared and cautious, not panic, because we're in a different situation to a year ago," Soumya Swaminathan said.

Swaminathan said the fast-spreading variant would have to become more transmissible to out-compete the Delta variant, but much remains unknown about Omicron.

The Omicron variant has been detected in at least 38 countries but there're no reported deaths from so far, the WHO said.

Officials around the world should focus on getting more people inoculated with vaccines currently on the market, WHO's emergencies director, Mike Ryan, said given there was no evidence that existing vaccines needed to be modified to fight Omicron.

(CGTN)