South African health authorities have conveyed to top medical experts that they are witnessing “very low hospitalization” directly linked to Omcron, although the new Covid variant of concern is “highly transmissibile” and patients are experiencing extreme fatigue even with mild disease.

The latest update came even as the World Health Organization (WHO) assessed global risk from the newly discovered variant as “very high”, and India extended support to countries dealing with Omicron in Africa, and promised supplies of Made-in-India vaccines.

Top Government sources told The Indian Express that experts from the ICMR and National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) held a detailed exchange with South African authorities on Omicron, including the transmissibility and severity of infection.

Significantly, the South African experts have informed that Omicron has not resulted in any deaths, as of now. “So far, it only manifests in the form of the mild disease with extreme fatigue and throat irritation being the predominant symptom,” sources said.

The South Africans also highlighted that patients are not experiencing loss of sense, smell and taste as reported in other variants, or drop in oxygen levels as reported in the Delta Variant. “At this point, based on the exchange, we are not panicking. We have to wait for a few more days on what happens. But if anything untoward happens, they will share with us,” sources said.