New, potentially more transmissible variant of Covid detected in South Africa

Potentially very contagious and with multiple mutations, a new variant of Covid has been detected in South Africa, which is seeing signs of a new wave of the pandemic, South African scientists announced on Thursday (25).

The B.1.1.529 variant has an “extremely high” number of mutations and “we can see that it has the potential to spread very quickly,” virologist Túlio de Oliveira announced at an online press conference supervised by the Ministry of Health of South Africa .

His team at the KRISP research institute, linked to the University of Kwazulu-Natal, was the one who discovered the highly contagious beta variant last year.

The virus mutations can potentially make it more transmissible to the point of making it dominant: this was the case of the delta variant, initially registered in India and which, according to the WHO (World Health Organization), reduced the effectiveness of vaccines in terms of of virus transmission to 40%.

At this time, South African scientists are unsure of the effectiveness of existing vaccines against the new strain.

“What worries us is that this variant may not only have an increased transmission capacity, but also be able to bypass parts of our immune system,” said another researcher, Professor Richard Lessells.

So far, 22 cases have been reported, mainly affecting young people, according to the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD). Cases have also been reported in neighboring Botswana and Hong Kong in a person returning from a trip to South Africa.

The WHO is expected to meet this Friday to determine the danger of the new variant.

“There are many variants, but some have no bearing on the evolution of the epidemic,” John Nkengasong, of the African Union Center for Disease Control and Prevention, commented at a press conference.

However, “the number of cases detected and the percentage of testing positive is increasing rapidly,” the NICD said in a statement, particularly in the most populous province of Gauteng, which includes Pretoria and Johannesburg.

Health structures should expect a new wave of patients in the coming days or weeks, scientists warned.

South Africa, officially the country most affected by the virus on the continent, has registered a new increase in contamination in recent weeks.

Attributed primarily to the delta variant, the “exponential” increase in infections was caused by this new variant, which poses “a major threat,” according to Health Minister Joe Phaahla.

The emergence of this new strain “reinforces the fact that this invisible enemy we are dealing with is very unpredictable,” he added.

South Africa has nearly 2.9 million cases and 89,600 deaths. More than 1,200 new cases in 24 hours were registered on Wednesday, up from 100 at the beginning of the month.

Authorities fear a new pandemic wave by the end of the year, as only 35% of adults who meet the necessary requirements are fully vaccinated.

Globally, Europe is once again the epicenter of the pandemic. Austria has recently imposed a new confinement, France has announced a tightening of health measures while Germany has passed 100,000 deaths.

Covid has killed more than 5.16 million people worldwide since its appearance in China in late 2019.

The WHO estimates that, considering the excess mortality directly and indirectly linked to Covid-19, the number of victims of the pandemic can be two to three times higher.