Infectious disease control in neonatal units is often reactive, only after several babies fall ill at the same time. Proactive genome sequencing provides an early-warning system to prevent outbreaks.
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ESR is New Zealand’s Crown Research Institute specialising in science for communities. ESR uses world-leading science to safeguard our health, keep our communities safer, protect our food-based economy, and improve the health of our water and natural environment.
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Our best chance of limiting the emergence of new recombinant COVID variants is to limit the spread of infections, using public health measures to slow and suppress the virus.
Without genome sequencing, we would be blind to new variants of COVID-19. As Omicron surges in New Zealand, the sequencing focus is shifting to learning about what causes severe or long-term disease.
The rapid increase in the number of infections is the most obvious reason why new variants of the virus have been emerging recently. Case numbers doubled in just two months at the end of 2020.
