Johannesburg (agencies)
Yesterday, scientists announced the discovery of a new mutant of the emerging coronavirus “Covid-19”, which may be highly contagious in South Africa, the African country most affected by the epidemic, which is witnessing a new rise in the number of infections.
Virologist Tulio de Oliveira said, in a virtual press conference, which was supervised by the Ministry of Health: “Unfortunately, we have discovered a new worrying mutant in South Africa, and the mutant (B.1.1.529) shows a very high number of mutations, and we can see that it has the ability to It spreads very quickly.”
His team from the Crisp Research Institute, backed by the University of KwaZulu-Natal, discovered the highly contagious beta mutant last year.
Mutations of the initial virus can make it more transmissible to the point where it becomes dominant, and this was the case with the “delta” mutant, which was discovered in India and which, according to the World Health Organization, reduced the effectiveness of vaccines against “Covid-19” by 40 percent. .
At this point, these scientists do not know whether the currently available vaccines are effective against the new mutation they have discovered.
Professor Richard Lessels, another researcher at the institute, said: “Our concern is that this mutant may not only have the ability to transmit faster, but also be able to damage parts of our immune system.”
So far, 22 cases of this new mutation have been reported, and most of them are young men, according to the National Institute of Infectious Diseases. And other infections with this mutant were recorded in neighboring Botswana and Hong Kong in a person who returned from a trip in South Africa.
The World Health Organization is scheduled to meet today to determine the severity of this mutation. “There are many variants, but some of them do not affect the evolution of the epidemic,” John Nkengasong of the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told a news conference.
The institute confirmed, in a statement, that “the number of detected infections, and the percentage of positive tests is increasing rapidly,” especially in the largest province of Gauteng in terms of population, which includes Pretoria and Johannesburg.
Scientists warned that health facilities expect a new wave of patients in the coming days or weeks. South Africa, the country most affected by the virus on the continent, has been witnessing an additional rise in the number of infections for weeks.
It is possible that the emergence of this new mutation caused the escalating rise “in the number of cases of Covid-19 in recent weeks,” according to Health Minister Joe Vahla, who attended the press conference held by the scientists.
South Africa is the most affected in the African continent by the epidemic, with more than 2.9 million infections and 89,600 deaths. On Wednesday, more than 1,200 new infections were recorded within 24 hours, compared to 100 at the beginning of the month. The authorities fear another wave of the epidemic by the end of the year.
So far, only 35 percent of eligible adults have been fully immunized.
For its part, the World Health Organization announced yesterday that there are challenges facing vaccination operations on the African continent, including that, for example, only 27 percent of medical workers across the continent have received full vaccination. The figures, released yesterday, showed wide regional variations.
In all, 1.3 million medical workers in 25 African countries have been vaccinated, according to the data. But the vaccination rate in six of these countries exceeds 90 percent, including Cape Verde, Lesotho and Rwanda. But numbers are declining in conflict-ridden countries such as Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad and Congo.
Meanwhile, in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, only 30 percent of medical professionals get vaccinated, with large vaccination gaps in rural areas.
Only 6.6 percent of the total population on the African continent was fully vaccinated against the Corona virus.
Official figures showed that, despite the decline in the overall trend in new infections, a fourth wave of the Corona virus had spread through many countries on the continent.
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