The Syrian golden hamster is used for COVID-19 research. That’s because its reaction to SARS-CoV-2 is similar to humans.
Early in the pandemic, Hong Kong University investigated the effects of the SARS-CoV-2 on Syrian golden hamsters. It concluded that hamsters are an essential tool for studying transmission, pathogenesis, treatment, and vaccination against SARS-CoV-2. Since then, the Syrian golden hamsters have been in use.
This time a study from Belgium, The omicron (B.1.1.529) SARS-CoV-2 variant of concern does not readily infect Syrian hamsters shows just like in humans, the omicron barely causes diseases in hamsters.
The study inoculated two sets of hamsters with the Delta variant (BavPat1 D614G strain) and another group with the Omicron (B.1.1.529) variants. After four days, the animals were euthanized and examined.
Omicron has lower viral RNA load in the lungs
The SARS-CoV-2 is an RNA virus. The number of RNA copies in the lungs reflects the efficiency of SARS-CoV-2 replication in that environment: the more RNA copies, the more viruses and diseases they can produce.
They found a much lower viral RNA load in the lungs of hamsters infected with the omicron variant than the hamsters infected with the delta variant.
In actual numbers, the median viral RNA load was 4,000,000 RNA copies/mg of lung tissue in animals infected with the Delta variant.
On the other hand, only about 3,000 RNA copies/mg of lung tissue were detected in the lungs of animals infected with the omicron variant. The graph below shows those results.
The omicron has zero Infectious virus titers in the lungs
Infectious virus titers refer to the concentration of viruses that can cause infection. There was no contagious virus titers detectable in the lungs of all the animals infected with the omicron variant.
In comparison, the animals infected with the Delta variant showed titers of around 20,000 tissue culture infective dose or TCID50/mg of lung tissue in the lungs of Delta strain-infected animals.
ability to produce Lung disease
The lungs infected by the delta variant showed inflammation around the airways, edema, and pneumonia.
In the omicron-infected group, there were no signs of inflammation on the walls of the bronchioles or pneumonia in the lungs. The omicron infected lungs look like normal, non-infected lungs.
The lung histopathology score measures how much disease is produced in the lungs. The delta-infected lungs had a score of 7.5, while the omicron-infected lungs were close to a baseline score of 1.75.
The mutations in the omicron variant allowed it to escape the immune system and prevented it from infecting the lungs. Details at Multinational study show why the Omicron variant has low fatality and high infectivity.
The omicron variants’ high infectivity was seen in South Africa. It can even evade vaccine-induced immunity.
- Higher number of COVID-19 cases but no change in death rates. The South African omicron experience
- Omicron outbreak in triple jabbed health care workers.
Take away message
Many will probably get infected by the omicron variant; however, it is still prudent to maintain a healthy immune response to prevent severe disease.
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