While back pain has been a common symptom of viral diseases, doctors are witnessing an increase in the case of severe back pain among Omicron patients, even after recovery.
Recently, the UK-based Zoe COVID app study added new symptoms such as nausea and loss of appetite.
"A significant number of these patients are having back breaking pain in the lower back and severe myalgia which is adding to the patient's woes," Mary added.
Omicron is a variant of global concern due to its high transmissibility. Emerging research has revealed that the Omicron variant causes less damage to the lungs and less severe disease when compared to other variants.
However, since data on Omicron is limited and gene sequencing is costly, the reason is "difficult to explain", Kotaru said.
First detected in South Africa and Botswana in late November, Omicron has been discovered in more than 100 countries and across all seven continents, as per the open access data sharing platform GISAID.
Meanwhile, scientists at Department of Biotechnology's Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) in India said that the highly transmissible Omicron with three sub-variants - BA.1, BA.2 and BA.3 - is likely replacing the previously dominant Delta strain in India, pushing the daily tally of COVID cases in the country.
Among the three sub-lineages, the scientists have noted the significant presence of both BA.1 and BA.2 in genome tests conducted in the country.
"The rapidity with which the infection is spreading, it looks like the Omicron is replacing the other variants in India, like the Delta variant. So we can say that it will be the predominant variant," Dr Rahul Pandit Director-Critical Care, Fortis Hospitals Mumbai, told IANS.
"However, the Delta variant is still there and contributes to some amount of infection," added Pandit, who is also Member of National and Maharashtra's COVID-19 Taskforce. He said that Omicron is also causing the reinfection because we can see that most of the patients still remain asymptomatic.
(This story was published from a syndicated feed. Only the headline and picture has been edited by FIT.)
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