Submitted:
08 December 2022
Posted:
12 December 2022
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Preprints on COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2
Abstract
A new variant of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron BA.5 virus has displaced all previous variants of the virus around the world. Preliminary assessment of the effectiveness of drugs for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 requires the availability of infection models in animals. In this study, we characterize the infection model SARS-CoV-2 Omicron BA.5 and its progeny sublineage BE.1 in hACE2-transgenic mice and in Syrian hamsters. Both sublineages turned out to be pathogenic for animals – the challenged animals showed weight loss, a high level of viral load and acute inflammation in the lungs. Part of BA.5-infected mice died after virus challenge, indicating that this virus variant is more pathogenic than the previous BA.1 variant but less pathogenic than Wuhan variant.
Keywords:
SARS-CoV-2
; Omicron BA.5
; Omicron BE.1
; animal model
Copyright: This open access article is published under a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license, which permit the free download, distribution, and reuse, provided that the author and preprint are cited in any reuse.
