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A new variant of the virus was discovered in South Africa, which scientists in the country have called “worrisome”. This Friday a group from the World Health Organization (WHO) will meet to measure the danger of the new mutation, which has been called B.1.1529. The variant has spread rapidly in recent days in the African country.
Another variant of the coronavirus, described as “worrisome” by the country’s scientists, has been detected in South Africa, announced this Thursday, November 25, the South African Minister of Health, Joe Phaahla.
B.1.1.529, as it is called at the moment, has spread in an accelerated and uncontrolled manner in recent days. Mainly among the young people of Gauteng, the province that includes two of the largest cities in the country, Pretoria -the capital- and Johannesburg.
South Africa had managed to stabilize its record of new coronavirus cases at just over 200 a day. But in recent days, that number has skyrocketed to more than 1,200 infections on Wednesday. On Thursday, the count doubled to 2,465 new registered positives, according to the latest report from the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD).
The first increase in cases was registered in Pretoria and spread throughout the municipality of Tshwane, which belongs to the province of Gauteng. The outbreaks apparently emerged at student meetings at the city’s universities. Seeing the significant increase in new cases, South African scientists studied the genomic sequence of the virus, and that’s how they discovered the variant.
Tulio de Oliveira, from the South African Genomic Surveillance network, which has followed the spread of the delta variant in the country, states that this variant B.1.1.529 “has many, many more mutations” than delta, “a constellation of new mutations ”. He also predicted that “pressure on the health system” will begin to be seen in the coming days and weeks.
However, the Health Minister said it was still too early to say whether the government will have to impose stricter restrictions to respond to this new variant.
“A variant about which we must be very serious”
A team of scientists from seven South African universities is currently studying the new mutation. “We are concerned about the evolutionary leap of this variant,” added De Olivera, concluding that “the only good news is that it can be detected by a PCR test.”
“It is clear that this is a variant about which we must be very serious,” added Ravindra Gupta, professor of clinical microbiology at the University of Cambridge. “It has a high number of spike mutations that could affect transmissibility and the immune response,” he added. Spike proteins are used by the coronavirus to help it penetrate the cells of a living organism. The more mutations, the more chances to enter and the more risk that the vaccines now developed will not be efficient in their greatest capacity.
Last year, South Africa was the first country to detect the beta variant, one of four labeled as “worrisome” by the WHO, due to its significant contagiousness and a low percentage of efficiency of vaccines against them.
But to this day, the delta variant remains by far the most infectious and worrisome of all, ahead of alpha, beta or mu. According to the sequences sent by countries around the world to the largest public database in the world, more than 99% are delta infections.
This Friday a working group of the World Health Organization (WHO), urgently requested by the South African government, will meet to discuss the new mutation and decide whether or not to give it a name from the Greek alphabet and if they should put it in the range of “worrying” variants.
A national vaccination that takes its time
About 41% of South African adults are already vaccinated with at least the first dose, while the number of daily vaccinations remains relatively low: less than 130,000 a day, against 300,000 targeted by the government. The country currently has 16.5 million doses of Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson, and expects the delivery of another 2.5 million next week, according to Nicholas Crisp, acting director general of the National Department of Health.
“We are receiving vaccines faster than we are using them at the moment,” explained the public official. “So, for some time now, we have been putting off deliveries, not decreasing orders, but just putting off our deliveries so as not to accumulate and store vaccines,” he explained.
South Africa, with a population of 60 million, has recorded more than 2.9 million Covid-19 cases, including more than 89,000 deaths.
With AP and Reuters
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