Health: Omicron’s survival rate is two-fold on plastic – Gulf Digital News

Health: Omicron’s survival rate is two-fold on plastic – Gulf Digital News

THE Omicron variant has a more than two-fold survival rate on plastic surfaces such as face shields and face masks when compared with other coronavirus (Covid-19) mutants, according to a study.

It lives on plastic surfaces for 193.5 hours – compared with the original Wuhan strain, which survived for 56 hours. The Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta variants of the virus lived for 191.3 hours, 156.6 hours, 59.3 hours, and 114.0 hours respectively.

The Japanese study, published yesterday prior to a peer-review, on bioRxiv – a free online lifescience portal run by Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory – also revealed that the variant survived for more than 20 hours on human skin.

A team of researchers from the Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine concluded that Omicron’s high ‘environmental stability’ helped it replace Delta as the dominant variant and spread more quickly.

According to Bahrain experts, the study reinforces the importance of hand hygiene and disinfection.

American Mission Hospital (AMH) pulmonologist Dr Chellaraja Chellasamy explained fomite-borne transmission of the virus, which is spread through inanimate objects.

“There has been a lot of talk about fomite-borne transmission in Covid, especially in the newer variants like Omicron,” Dr Chellasamy told the GDN.

“Fomites are objects or materials that are likely