South African scientists are currently monitoring a new COVID-19 variant, called C.1.2. The new variant was first discovered at the beginning of May and has had already spread to most South African provinces as well as seven other countries in Africa, including European countries.
According to Tech Journal, the variant contains several mutations that in other variants are linked to increased transmissibility and decreased sensitivity to neutralizing antibodies, however, scientists are not yet sure how they affect the behaviour of the virus.
The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) researcher Penny Moore, indicated during a virtual press briefing that there are no experimental data to confirm how the variant reacts in terms of sensitivity to antibodies, they are confident that the increase in vaccination numbers in South Africa will continue to protect citizens against severe illness and death, Aljazeera reported.
Maria van Kerkhove, technical lead on COVID-19 for the World Health Organization (WHO) added that there are no signs that the circulation of the variant is increasing. She says the WHO would inform people if that changes as the Delta variant is still dominant, BCC indicated.
South Africa is also one of the country’s that were hit the hardest with more than 2.7 million COVID-19 cases reported to date, of which at least 81,830 have been fatal.
A s of today the cumulative number of #COVID19 cases identified in SA is 2 770 575 with 5 644 new cases reported. Today 235 deaths have been reported bringing the total to 81 830 deaths. The cumulative number of recoveries now stand at 2 533 956 with a recovery rate of 91,5% pic.twitter.com/CkmNrf7mKI
— Department of Health (@HealthZA) August 30, 2021
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Picture: Cape{town}etc gallery