South Africa reported a recent surge in Covid-19 cases among children, which was not seen in the previous waves of the pandemic even as the country is handling the sharp increase of Omicron variant cases.

Experts raised concern as more children under five and teenagers aged between 15 to 19 tested positive for the infection in the fresh surge.

"We have always seen children not being heavily affected by the Covid epidemic in the past (and) not having many admissions (to hospitals). In the third wave, we saw more admissions in children under five and in teenagers who were 15 to 19.

"Now, at the start of this fourth wave, we see quite a sharp increase across all age groups, but particularly in the under-fives," said Dr Waasila Jassat of the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) at a media briefing by the Health Ministry on Friday.

"As expected, the incidence is still lowest in children. However, the incidence in those under five is now second highest and second only to the incidence in those over 60.

"The trend that we are seeing now that is different from what we saw before is the particular increase in hospital admissions in children under five years," Jassat added.

Dr Michelle Groome, also from the NICD, said more research would be done to investigate the reasons behind this phenomenon.

"It is still very early on in the wave. At this stage, it has just started in the younger age groups and we will know more (by) monitoring this age group in the coming weeks."

Dr Ntsakisi Maluleke, an official of the health department in South Africa's Gauteng province, however, told Reuters in an interview: "We are comforted by clinicians' reports that the children have mild disease."

Scientists were investigating what was driving the increased admissions in younger ages and were hoping to provide more clarity in the coming two weeks, she said yesterday.

Dutch health authorities said yesterday the final tally of passengers on two flights from South Africa last week who had tested positive for the Omicron coronavirus variant was 18.

The Netherlands' Institute for Health (RIVM) added in a statement that its investigation on passengers on the two flights has now been wrapped up, reports Reuters.

Outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel yesterday urged Germans to get vaccinated against Covid-19 to help turn the tide on a fourth wave of cases that she said had become "dramatic" in parts of the country.

"We are in a very serious situation. In some parts of the country you can only describe it as dramatic: overfilled intensive care units, severely ill people who have to be flown across Germany to get the care they need," she said.

South Korea reported a record daily 5,352 new Covid-19 infections and 70 deaths, while a nationwide total of nine cases of the Omicron variant have been confirmed, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said yesterday.

'ULTIMATE EVIDENCE'

The head of the Red Cross said on Friday that the emergence of the Omicron variant is the "ultimate evidence" of the danger of unequal vaccination rates around the world.

In an interview with AFP during a visit to Moscow, Francesco Rocca, the president of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, also raised concerns about the politicisation of migrants and for the plight of civilians in Afghanistan as winter approaches.

Asked about the global approach to vaccinations, the head of one of the world's largest humanitarian groups said more needed to be done to fight rampant vaccine inequality.

"The scientific community has warned... on several occasions about the risks of very new variants in places where there is a very low rate of vaccinations," he said.

According to researchers, the Omicron variant likely acquired at least one of its mutations by picking up a snippet of genetic material from another virus - possibly one that causes the common cold - present in the same infected cells.

This genetic sequence does not appear in any earlier versions of the coronavirus, called SARS-CoV-2, but is ubiquitous in many other viruses including those that cause the common cold, and also in the human genome, they said.

By inserting this particular snippet into itself, Omicron might be making itself look "more human," which would help it evade attack by the human immune system, said Venky Soundararajan of Cambridge, Massachusetts-based data analytics firm nference, who led the study.