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Nairobi, December 24
Another new variant of the coronavirus appears to have emerged in Nigeria, Africa’s top public health official said on Thursday, but added that more research is needed.
The discovery could add to a new alarm bell in the pandemic after similar variants were announced in Britain and South Africa, leading to the swift return of international travel restrictions and other measures just as the world enters a major holiday season. .
(Click here for the latest developments on the Covid-19 epidemic)
“It is a different lineage from the UK and South Africa,” the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Africa, John Nkengasong, told reporters. He said the Nigerian CDC and the African Center of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases in that country, the most populous in Africa, will analyze more samples.
“Give us a little time … it’s still very early,” he said.
The alert about the apparent new variant was based on two or three genetic sequences, he said, but that and the alert from South Africa late last week were enough to spark an emergency meeting of the Africa CDC this week.
The variant was found in two patient samples collected on August 3 and October 9 in Nigeria’s Osun state, according to a working research document seen by The Associated Press.
Unlike the variant seen in the UK, “we have not seen such a rapid increase in lineage in Nigeria and we have no evidence to indicate that the P681H variant is contributing to increased transmission of the virus in Nigeria. However, the relative difference in the scale of genomic surveillance in Nigeria versus the UK may imply reduced power to detect such changes, ”the paper says.
The news comes as infections are on the rise again in parts of the African continent.
The new variant in South Africa is now prevalent there, Nkengasong said, as confirmed infections in the country approach a million. While the variant spreads quickly and viral loads are higher, it is not yet clear whether it leads to more serious illness, he said.
“We believe this mutation will not have an effect” on the deployment of COVID-19 vaccines on the continent, he said of the South African variant.
South Africa’s health minister announced an “alarming rate of spread” in that country late Wednesday, with more than 14,000 new cases confirmed last day, including more than 400 deaths. It was the largest increase in cases in a single day.
The country has more than 950,000 infections and COVID-19 is “relentless,” said Health Minister Zwelini Mkhize.
The African continent now has more than 2.5 million confirmed cases, or 3.3% of global cases. Infections across the continent have risen 10.9% in the past four weeks, Nkengasong said, including an increase of 52% in Nigeria and 40% in South Africa.
For the first time since the first virus case was confirmed in sub-Saharan Africa in February, Nigeria is in the spotlight during this pandemic as infections rise.
“In recent weeks, we have had a large increase in the number of samples for the reference laboratory (CDC Nigeria),” CDC Director General Chikwe Ihekweazu tweeted on Thursday. “This has caused an unusual delay with testing, but we were working around the clock,” and many colleagues shortened their vacations and returned to work.
Nigeria now has more than 80,000 confirmed coronavirus cases. AP
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