A new type of coronavirus, which appears to be more transmissible, has been found in South Africa and is being blamed for a new surge in COVID-19 cases there.
Although it has emerged independently, it has shown a similar transformation Found a new variant in the United Kingdom Scientists say it is more transmissible, which begs many countries Travel ban from Britain.
South Africa’s health minister, Zweli McIze, said the new strain appeared to be linked to higher rates of acute illness among young people, and scientists were working to find out more.
Germany, Switzerland, ND, Israel, Turkey and Saudi Arabia are among the countries that have stopped flying to and from South Africa.
On Wednesday, British Health Secretary Matt Hancock said two new cases of the coronavirus had been found in Britain from South Africa. He announced that anyone who had gone to South Africa in the past few weeks must be kept separate immediately.
Hancock said the new variant is very relevant, as it is even more transmissible and seems to have changed more than the new variant found in the UK.
CBS News spoke to Tulio de Oliveira, director of the KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform (KRISP) at KwaZulu-Natal University in Durban, South Africa. . He said on Wednesday that he was working closely with the British government, and that it was a new South African type discovered in the UK, with one text of the following interview edited for length and clarity.
Haley Ott: We are hearing reports of the emergence of new types of coronavirus in countries around the world. What is happening in South Africa?
Professor Tulio de Oliveira: We have a new type that is spreading very fast, and it has done the same (things) with the variant it has done in London – i.e. dominance. What it means – dominance – is displacing others like 20, 30 different races.
It is very important to note that the variants between South Africa and the UK are very different. They don’t have common origins, but they do have some similarities. In both cases there is a complete transformation of the spike glycoprotein which allows the spike protein to potentially bind better to the cells and enter the body. We both, in South Africa and the UK, believe that this race is much more transmissible than the previous race. And we are trying to study as quickly and as quickly as possible.
Is there any indication that the bad outcome of these new forms is in terms of the severity of the disease in South Africa or the UK.
At the moment, we believe, in both South Africa and the UK, that the severity of the disease is the same. But again, that is still an open question. But we have no reason to believe that the severity of the disease is different. However, if it is spreading very fast, we end up with very few people, just sickness.
As more information about these new types comes out and, in different countries, as governments announce their response plans, I think people may be a little confused about how intense their reaction should be. While some people say that viruses always mutate, this is not uncommon. But we are hearing that it is more transmissible. How concerned should people be about these new types?
Yes, viruses always change. And SARS-Covey-2 [coronavirus] There was a kind of fixed linear change rate of about two changes per month. We didn’t worry about the earlier mutations before because they didn’t seem to have a severe impact on the biological properties of the virus. And that’s why we’ve become more concerned, when two independent types seem to be spreading rapidly across two regions of the world. We will not be surprised if Stress is also found in other countries That it is better transmitted due to changes in the spike protein.
Can you tell me a little bit about how this new breed was discovered in South Africa?
We had an increase in genomic surveillance in the South African region which was getting the first growth of the second wave, as we were quite surprised. Because in the summer of South Africa, we don’t expect a summer surge and a big second wave to start. And then when we surveyed it, we saw that this lineage displaces others, but it also spreads very quickly along the coast.
What do you think people should understand about what is happening here?
We have to take almost the same approach as many South Asian and Asian and Oceania countries that tried to stop the transmission and tried to stop the transmission when it started, which reacts very strongly in small cases. So what happened in South Africa, in the UK, in the United States or in Brazil, will we keep moving the virus to relatively low or high levels and learn to live with the virus. But maybe the virus is getting ahead of us.
We are concerned not only for South Africa, but for the rest of Africa. HIV for 20 years Our health system has been affected by the V and TB epidemics, so we are concerned that Africa may have successfully escaped the first wave, if it does not become more stringent and try to control the virus we will have successfully escaped this second wave. Not as successfully as we did before.
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