An "unusual rash" has been linked to cases of the new Omicron COVID-19 strain in children in the UK, a GP says.
Dr David Lloyd, a GP based in north London, has detailed the symptoms of the new variant primarily seen among young children.
Around 15 percent of children who've been confirmed as having Omicron had developed a rash, he said.
The UK recorded 101 new Omicron cases on Tuesday (local time) taking the total to 437.
Dr Lloyd said Omicron cases appeared to be presenting slightly different symptoms to other strains.
"Things like fatigue, a headache and loss of appetite seem to be quite important, as does a rash," he told Sky News. "We've always had a small cohort of patients with COVID who are getting funny rashes but up to 15 percent of the Omicron children are getting an unusual rash.
"So we're starting to learn a little bit more about the virus and we are starting to look out for it," he told Sky News.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has previously said there is no information at present to suggest the symptoms of the Omicron variant are different from other COVID-19 variants.
The research head of a laboratory at Africa Health Research Institute in South Africa said that the Omicron variant can partially evade the protection from Pfizer and partner BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine.
Alex Sigal, a professor at the Africa Health Research Institute, said on Twitter there was "a very large drop" in neutralisation of the Omicron variant relative to an earlier strain of COVID.
The lab tested blood from 12 people who had been vaccinated with the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, according to a manuscript posted on the website for his lab.
The preliminary data in the manuscript has not yet been peer-reviewed.
Omicron continues to spread throughout Britain, with Professor Tim Spector saying he suspects there are at least 1000 cases of the new variant already in the UK.
"The official estimates are about 350-odd Omicron cases, and because the current testing is missing a lot of those, it's probably at least 1000 to 2000 I would guess at the moment," the professor of genetic epidemiology at King's College London told BBC Breakfast.
"And we are expecting this to be doubling about every two days at the moment, so if you do your maths - say assumed it's 1000 at the moment, and you think it's going to be doubling every two days, you can see that those numbers are going to be pretty (high) certainly in about 10 days time.
"By that time, we'll probably have more cases than they will in some of those African countries."
