SARS-CoV-2 Omicron BA.1, BA.2, and XAG identification during routine surveillance on a university campus in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, 2022.
Daniel Costa QueirozNatália Virtude CarobinLuiza Campos Guerra de Araújo E SantosPaula Luize Camargos FonsecaIsabela Lorraine Braga-PazRillery Calixto DiasJorge Gomes Goulart FerreiraTúlio Resende FreitasDiego MenezesSílvia Cristina Verde Mendes NolascoSimone Rodrigues RibeiroThaís Salviana RibeiroLaura do Amaral XavierKarina Braga GomesAdriano de Paula SabinoRenato Santana de AguiarRenan Pedra de SouzaPublished in: Brazilian journal of microbiology : [publication of the Brazilian Society for Microbiology] (2022)
We report SARS-CoV-2 genomic surveillance results between Belo Horizonte, Brazil's third and fourth case waves. Samples were obtained through a routine university monitoring COVID-19 program from the 9th to the 22nd epidemiological weeks (March and June 2022). We identified ten samples from the BA.1 clade (BA.1, BA.1.1, and BA.1.14.1 lineages) and 45 samples from the BA.2 clade (BA.2, BA.2.56, BA.2.9, BA.2.62, BA.2.23, BA.2.81, and BA.2.10). We observed progressive replacement of the BA.1 by the BA.2 clade. Furthermore, two XAG recombinants were found in the 22nd week. Diversification of the omicron variant seems to have contributed to the resurgence of cases in Belo Horizonte, similarly to what has been reported in South Africa.