Clinical Features and Duration of Viral Shedding in Individuals With SARS-CoV-2 Omicron Variant Infection

Young R Jang; Jeong-Min Kim; Jee E Rhee; Dongju Kim; Nam-Joo Lee; Hyeokjin Lee; Jong-Hun Kim; Eun-Jin Kim; Jin Y Kim

doi:10.1093/ofid/ofac237

Clinical Features and Duration of Viral Shedding in Individuals With SARS-CoV-2 Omicron Variant Infection

Open Forum Infect Dis. 2022 May 9;9(7):ofac237. doi: 10.1093/ofid/ofac237. eCollection 2022 Jul.

Authors

Young R Jang¹, Jeong-Min Kim², Jee E Rhee², Dongju Kim², Nam-Joo Lee², Hyeokjin Lee², Jong-Hun Kim³, Eun-Jin Kim², Jin Y Kim¹

Affiliations

¹ Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Internal Medicine, Incheon Medical Center, Incheon, South Korea.
² Division of Emerging Infectious Diseases, Bureau of Infectious Disease Diagnosis Control, Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, Cheongju, South Korea.
³ Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Suwon, South Korea.

Abstract

We analyzed the duration of infectivity of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Omicron variant by viral culture of respiratory samples collected daily from isolated patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection. The culture positivity rate of the Omicron variant was higher than that of the Delta variant within 8 days after symptom onset.

Keywords: Omicron variant; SARS-CoV-2; transmissibility; viral load; viral shedding.