Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 May 28;14(6):1177.
doi: 10.3390/v14061177.

Omicron Sub-Lineages (BA.1.1.529 + BA.*) Current Status in Ecuador

Andrés Carrazco-Montalvo  1 , Andrés Herrera-Yela  1 , Damaris Alarcón-Vallejo  1 , Diana Gutiérrez-Pallo  1 , Isaac Armendáriz-Castillo  2   3 , Derly Andrade-Molina  4 , Karen Muñoz-Mawyin  4 , Juan Carlos Fernández-Cadena  5 , Gabriel Morey-León  6 , Usfq-Covid-Consortium, Crn Influenza Y Ovr-Inspi, Leandro Patiño  7
Affiliations

Omicron Sub-Lineages (BA.1.1.529 + BA.*) Current Status in Ecuador

Andrés Carrazco-Montalvo et al. Viruses. .

Abstract

The Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 is the latest pandemic lineage causing COVID-19. Despite having a vaccination rate ≥85%, Ecuador recorded a high incidence of Omicron from December 2021 to March 2022. Since Omicron emerged, it has evolved into multiple sub-lineages with distinct prevalence in different regions. In this work, we use all Omicron sequences from Ecuador available at GISAID until March 2022 and the software Nextclade and Pangolin to identify which lineages circulate in this country. We detected 12 different sub-lineages (BA.1, BA.1.1, BA.1.1.1, BA.1.1.14, BA.1.1.2, BA.1.14, BA.1.15, BA.1.16, BA.1.17, BA.1.6, BA.2, BA.2.3), which have been reported in Africa, America, Europe, and Asia, suggesting multiple introduction events. Sub-lineages BA.1 and BA.1.1 were the most prevalent. Genomic surveillance must continue to evaluate the dynamics of current sub-lineages, the early introduction of new ones and vaccine efficacy against evolving SARS-CoV-2.

Keywords: COVID-19; Ecuador; Omicron; sub-lineages.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Variants of concern in Ecuador since Omicron’s first detection.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Omicron sub-lineages (BA.1.1.529 + BA.*) in Ecuador. (a) Sub-lineages by epidemiological week, (b) phylogenetic tree of all lineages.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Wu F., Zhao S., Yu B., Chen Y., Wang W., Song Z., Hu Y., Tao Z., Tian J., Pei Y., et al. A new coronavirus associated with human respiratory disease in China. Nature. 2020;579:265–269. doi: 10.1038/s41586-020-2008-3. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. World Health Organization WHO Coronavirus (COVID-19) Dashboard. [(accessed on 7 April 2022)]. Available online: https://covid19.who.int/
    1. Hu B., Guo H., Zhou P., Shi Z. Characteristics of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19. Nat. Rev. Microbiol. 2021;19:141–154. doi: 10.1038/s41579-020-00459-7. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Khandia R., Singhal S., Alqahtani T., Kamal M.A., El-Shall N., Nainu F., Desingu P., Dhama K. Emergence of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron (B.1.1.529) variant, salient features, high global health concerns and strategies to counter it amid ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Environ. Res. 2022;209:112816. doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2022.112816. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Ito K., Piantham C., Nishiura H. Relative instantaneous reproduction number of Omicron SARS-CoV-2 variant with respect to the Delta variant in Denmark. J. Med. Virol. 2022;94:2265–2268. doi: 10.1002/jmv.27560. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Supplementary concepts