The BA.5 strain of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 is in the community in Fiji.
Ministry of Health and Medical Services permanent secretary Dr James Fong said a recent set of positive samples were sent to their reference laboratory in Melbourne, Australia, for genomic sequencing and it confirmed what they had expected – the presence of the BA.5 strain.
He said the finding was consistent with the recent significant overall increase in COVID-19 cases in the last few weeks coupled with the reported surges in BA.4 and BA.5 globally.
“Omicron sublineages BA.4 and BA.5 are now dominant in many countries, including Australia and New Zealand,” Dr Fong said.
“Although BA.5 has the ability to evade immune protection against infection induced by prior infection and or vaccination, there remains significant protection against severe disease, and there is no evidence that BA.4 and BA.5 cause more severe disease than previous variants.
“This is demonstrated in our persistently low hospitalisation data for severe diseases despite the community-wide escalation currently seen.”
Dr Fong has urged everyone to stay up to date with their COVID-19 vaccination, in particular adults over the age of 50, and anyone with underlying medical conditions.
He has also implored community and workplace leaders to bring back many of the COVID safe measures that their community and or organisations had learned during the acute outbreak.
“We need to be able to live with COVID by reducing the risk of vulnerable people getting COVID and or suffering from severe consequences.”
On Monday, the ministry reported 169 new cases of COVID-19.
