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Taiwan reports 2 new domestic BA.5 subvariant cases

ROC Central News Agency

07/18/2022 07:26 PM

Taipei, July 18 (CNA) Taiwan reported two new local cases of the BA.5 Omicron subvariant of the COVID-19 virus on Monday, with both having been infected after carrying out airport pickups, according to the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC).

The two new BA.5 cases are both men in their 50s, including one who picked up his family members who had arrived from the United States at the airport on June 27. The man developed symptoms including a fever and coughing on June 30 and tested positive for COVID-19.

He and his two other family members have ended their isolation, while three contacts of the infected at their workplace all tested negative, said Lo Yi-chun (羅一鈞), deputy head of the CECC's medical response division.

The other man and his wife picked up their offspring who had returned from Italy on July 1. Their offspring tested positive at the airport and genome sequencing conducted showed that the person was infected with the BA.5 subvariant.

Retroactive testing on the person's father who developed an itchy throat on July 10 and subsequent genome sequencing showed he had contracted the BA.5 subvariant, according to Lo.

The man's wife tested negative on July 10 but a further test on July 16 came back positive with a cycle threshold value (CT value) of over 30.

Genome sequencing will be conducted to determine whether the woman was also infected with the BA.5 subvariant.

So far, seven domestic cases of the Omicron subvariant have been reported in Taiwan, including six cases in four families who tested positive after picking up relatives at the airport, according to the CECC.

Meanwhile, Taiwan reported 44 imported Omicron infections on Monday, including six cases of BA.4 and 38 BA.5 cases, at a time when many countries are seeing a resurgence of COVID-19 cases associated with the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants of Omicron.

However, viral genome sequencing of samples from 124 confirmed domestic COVID-19 cases conducted last week found that only three had the BA.5 subvariant, meaning the percentage of BA.5 infections among total cases remains low and the BA.5 poses only a limited risk of community transmission, according to Lo.

To date, Taiwan has recorded 316 imported cases of BA.5 along with 54 cases of BA.4, according to the CECC.

(By Chang Chieh-ling, Chang Ming-hsuan and Evelyn Kao)

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