Comparison of SARS-CoV-2 Viral Loads in the Nasal Mucosa of Patients Infected With BA.1, BA.2, or BA.5 Omicron Lineages

Kyla Tozer; Calvin P Sjaarda; Emily Moslinger; Henry Wong; Samira Mubareka; Finlay Maguire; Ramzi Fattouh; Danielle Brabant-Kirwan; Robert Kozak; Prameet M Sheth

doi:10.1093/ofid/ofac564

Comparison of SARS-CoV-2 Viral Loads in the Nasal Mucosa of Patients Infected With BA.1, BA.2, or BA.5 Omicron Lineages

Open Forum Infect Dis. 2022 Oct 22;9(12):ofac564. doi: 10.1093/ofid/ofac564. eCollection 2022 Dec.

Authors

Kyla Tozer^{1

2}, Calvin P Sjaarda^{3

4}, Emily Moslinger^{1

3}, Henry Wong⁴, Samira Mubareka⁵, Finlay Maguire⁵, Ramzi Fattouh⁶, Danielle Brabant-Kirwan⁷, Robert Kozak^{5

8

9}, Prameet M Sheth^{1

2

3

4}

Affiliations

¹ Gastrointestinal Disease Research Unit (GIDRU), Department of Medicine, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
² Department of Translational Medicine, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
³ Department of Pathology and Molecular Medicine, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
⁴ Division of Microbiology, Kingston Health Sciences Centre, Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
⁵ Biological Sciences Platform Sunnybrook Health Sciences Center, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
⁶ Unity Health, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
⁷ Health Sciences North, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada.
⁸ Shared Hospital Laboratory, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
⁹ Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Abstract

Lower viral loads were observed in the upper respiratory tract of patients infected with BA.1, whereas patients infected with BA.2 and BA.5 had comparable viral loads to those seen with Alpha or Delta. This suggests that viral loads are likely not responsible for the increased transmission of the Omicron lineages.

Keywords: BA5 variant; Omicron lineage; SARS-CoV-2; viral infection; viral load.