About a year after the appearance of the "Omicron" mutant, which appeared to be highly contagious, but causes milder symptoms, epidemiologists recently warned, in a recent

medical study, that the next variant of the virus may be more ferocious, in a shift that will turn back the clock, while the world is looking to little by little to turn the page of the epidemic.

According to the British newspaper "Daily Mail", the world may register a more ferocious variant compared to the most widespread variants at the moment.

Mild symptoms of the "Omicron" variant helped to alleviate the epidemic in the world, because people who were infected did not have to be hospitalized, the wave did not lead to exhaustion of health care systems.

But researchers at the Africa Institute for Health Research in Durban, South Africa, warned that the coronavirus is still able to mutate, despite the current lull, and may spawn a more ferocious version in the future.

Scientists launched this warning after they studied the case of an AIDS-infected person to whom the "Omicron" variant of the corona infection was transmitted, he could not get rid of it for six months, due to the weakness of his immune system.

The study stated that when the virus variant remains in the patient's body for many months, it finds plenty of time to multiply, and then, the probability of secreting a new, more virulent variant increases as a result of modifications and changes that have occurred to it.

Epidemiologist researcher Alex Segal, the academic supervising the study, explained that the virus, which stayed for a long time in the body, caused greater inflammation in the lungs, in a situation similar to what was caused by infection with previous strains of coronavirus.

Over time, the virus mutated and became more capable of killing cells, and if it spread to others, they would have the same severe symptoms.

This study comes as China is witnessing protests in a number of regions, due to the authorities ' adherence to the "zero covid" policy, which continues to impose closures, despite the abandonment by most countries of the world of the hard-line approach to encircle the covid-19 disease.

Concerns are being raised about the possibility of the emergence of severe variants whose health consequences cannot be limited by the currently available vaccines.