Minister of Health, Dr Frank Anthony yesterday revealed that approximately 50 samples are expected to be sent for gene sequencing this week to determine if the COVID-19 Omicron variant is present here.
This was disclosed during his daily COVID-19 update where he stated that arrangements for getting the sample shipped to the lab are being worked out.
According to the Minister, authorities have looked at the epidemiology of the virus and as such if they had gone with samples prior to December 28th those would have shown that at that time the Delta variant was still circulating here.
As such, he noted that when there were spikes seen in cases after that date, it was then a sign that the new Omicron variant was here. “When we started seeing the spike, this vertical telltale sign of Omicron on our graphs we realized that Omicron is here so from those patients from that time period onward we were able to select a few samples,” he said.
The samples are expected to be sent to the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) which had previously confirmed the presence of the Delta variant here.
Anthony added that when it gets to the lab, it normally takes between two to three weeks for the sequencing to be done. “So this week we expect to ship those samples and then in two to three weeks’ time we will get those results,” the Health Minister said.
