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A new strain of coronavirus, different from the one recently detected in South Africa and England, but which “shares some mutations” with the latter, was discovered in Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, with 200 million inhabitants.
Following the low-key announcement this week by the African Center of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases (Acegid), based in Ede, southwestern Nigeria, the African Center for Disease Control (CDC) – the health agency of the African Union – organized an emergency meeting.
But Professor Christian Happi, a molecular biologist who participated in the genetic sequencing of this new variant, He asked that this discovery not be “extrapolated” in an interview with AFP.
Acegid analyzed 200 samples of the virus in early December and two of them, taken from patients on August 3 and October 9, have genetic mutations.
“We have no idea or certainty whether this variant is directly related to the increase in cases that Nigeria is currently seeing.”, the professor specified.
The country had more than 82,000 cases registered on Saturday and 1,246 deaths, figures that, however, are relatively low but the number of tests carried out in the country is insignificant, and hundreds more cases have been detected every day since the beginning of December than the day before.
Virus tracking
Thanks to the genetic sequencing of the virus, a highly refined screening operation that only 12 laboratories on the African continent can perform, Professor Happi and his team were able to describe the evolution of the mutation.
“We don’t know where this new variant comes from. We believe that it is independent, that it is produced in Nigeria. I don’t think it’s imported “stressed the biologist.
This former Harvard professor, who specializes in infectious diseases, recalled however that “viruses mutate and change” naturally.
“The important thing is not the mutation, but the transformation of the protein tip”, the part of the virus that allows access to the cells of the body, and that would make that mutation infectious, he explained.
Not enough research has been done so far and Acegid is working with the Nigerian Infectious Diseases Center (NCDC), the national public health body, to try to explain the recent increase in COVID-19 cases and whether it could be due to new strain.
Still, one thing seems to be true: the relatively low fatality rate in Nigeria compared to Western countries has not risen lately.
“Weather”
“I ask people not to extrapolate. There is a tendency to extrapolation with these new variants of the virus ”, stressed the professor. “Nothing proves, for example, that the strain found in England would have the same effects in Nigeria” and vice versa.
“If there is something that covid-19 has taught us, it is that in everything we thought we knew about this virus, we were wrong,” Happi recalled.
“Some predicted that a third of the population of Africa would die, but we cannot apply the research and figures gathered in Europe and the United States and apply it here: we are genetically different, our immune health is different,” he insisted.
For his part, the director of the CDC of the African Union, Jhon Nkengasong, asked for “time” while investigating the rate of spread of the new strain in Nigeria, during a video conference from Addis Ababa.
At the moment, 2.4 million cases of covid-19 have been registered in Africa, that is, 3.6% of the world total, according to an AFP count. Regarding deaths, more than 57,000 have been confirmed, that is, less than in France (59,072).
The small number of diagnostic tests that are carried out could question the statisticsBut it is also true that no country has observed any spike in excess mortality, which would indicate a spread of the virus.
Still, Professor Nkengasong urged the mainland in early December to prepare for a “second wave that will undoubtedly come.”
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