Could the Omicron variant have developed in African AIDS patients?

In a special edition of the Jerusalem Post Podcast - Health & Wellness Edition, Senior Health Analyst Maayan Hoffman talks with Prof. Cyrille Cohen, head of the Immunology Lab at Bar-Ilan University, explains what is concerning health experts.

The burning question: How did the world get a COVID variant with more than 50 mutations, including over 30 on the virus’ spike protein?

According to Cohen, SARS-CoV-2 mutates at a rate of about one mutation every two weeks. So a variant like Omicron would mean that it started mutating almost two years ago, “which does not add up with what we know.”

So, why are we seeing so many mutations at once in a variant?

Partly because this variant was developing for a few months under the radar until it acquired enough mutations to be what the Omicron is today as a variant of concern. And the likelihood, said Cohen, is that it could have incubated in people with defective immune systems, like for example in people with AIDS.

“In normal people, not vaccinated, infection lasts five to 10 days,” he said. “This lapse in time is what the virus has to change until you infect someone else. In vaccinated people, the virus has around a day - meaning the virus would not thrive as it does in unvaccinated people. That is why it is so important to get vaccinated in order to stop the spread of the variants.

“But in immunosuppressed people, you might end up with a kind of chronic infection in which the virus lingers for a month or so,” he continued. “And during that time, the virus could actually dodge the immune system and accumulate more and more mutations.”

The virus is just replicating over and over in the person’s body because the immune system is not able to stop it. 

“Africa should definitely be granted access to vaccines as fast as possible,” Cohen contended, “because this is a global fight and only when all of the population will have access to vaccines can we stand a chance of minimizing the cases we will see.”

Other items during the discussion:

> Children’s vaccination
> Shuttering Israel’s airport
> The effectiveness of the mRNA vaccines - against the variant and in general 

Photo credit: REUTERS, as seen on jpost.com