New 'Omicron-like' version of Omicron variant detected in Queensland

Australia has recorded a new version of the Omicron variant that has a different genetic structure.

Queensland today reported two Omicron cases among previously detected COVID-19 transmissions.

One of them - in a traveller who recently arrived from South Africa - has been described as "Omicron-like" after research by international experts.

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Health Minister Yvette D'Ath said the case revealed a second "lineage" of the variant.

"That is the new lineage and name that will be given to this variant that has been identified and confirmed by the international committee," she said.

Acting Chief Health Officer Peter Aitken said the lineage has about half the genetic changes of the first Omicron variant.

"We now have Omicron and Omicron-like, it's a reminder to us all that as we open our borders this doesn't mean that the COVID journey has finished, in many ways the COVID journey is just starting."

Unlike the conventional Omicron variant, it doesn't have the "S-gene drop out" feature, he said.

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'Stealth' version of Omicron

Without the "S-gene drop out" feature, the new lineage of Omicron is harder to track with PCR testing, The Guardian reports.

This has earned it the label of the "stealth" version of the variant.

Professor Francois Balloux, from the University College London Genetics Institute, said that there are "two lineages within Omicron, BA.1 and BA.2, that are quite differentiated genetically".

She said that BA.2 may behave differently than the Omicron variant first detected.

The emergence of this new variant poses a threat to countries' COVID-19 testing networks.

It could spread undetected while public health authorities concentrate on identifying standard Omicron cases.