[ad_1]
South Africa has become the first African nation to record one million coronavirus cases, according to new data released by the country’s health ministry on December 27, 2020. RODGER BOSCH / AFP via Getty Images
The battle against the coronavirus pandemic looks more and more like a cat and mouse game between the launch of the vaccine and the mutation of the virus. After a highly infectious variant of COVID-19 was found in the UK just before Christmas, another deadly strain of the coronavirus emerged in South Africa, prompting some public health experts to worry that it could be an even greater threat. than the UK variant.
“I am incredibly concerned about the South African variant,” British Health Secretary Matt Hancock told the BBC. Today schedule Monday. As a result, the British government has suspended all flights from South Africa. “This is a very, very significant problem … and it is even more troublesome than the new UK variant,” Hancock added.
Like the UK variant, the new strain discovered in South Africa, officially called 501Y.V2, involves multiple mutations within the coronavirus at the same time.
“They both have multiple and different mutations in them, so they are not a single mutation,” explained John Bell, professor of medicine at the University of Oxford, in the British journal. Times Radio on Sunday. “The mutations associated with the South African form are really quite substantial changes in the structure of the protein (virus peak).”
South Africa has reported more than 1.1 million COVID-19 cases and nearly 30,000 deaths. The new strain has been found to spread rapidly in the Western Cape, Eastern Cape, and KwaZulu-Natal.
See also: COVID-19 vaccine chaos: Record deaths as millions of doses could be wasted
Scientists are not yet sure whether existing vaccines are effective against these new mutations. While a related study is underway, Bell said his intuition was that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines would still be effective against the UK strain, but that he was less certain about the one identified in South Africa.
Some scientists argue that it is too early to call the South African strain more lethal than the British variant, or vice versa. To say that the South African strain is more problematic is “politics rather than science” at this point, said Richard Lessells, an infectious disease specialist at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, according to Bloomberg.
“The efficacy of the vaccine is clearly one of the big questions that arise when discovering these new variables, and we understand that everyone wants answers immediately,” added Lessells. “But it takes a little time to get the answers.”
The South African variant was first detected on December 18. Preliminary studies suggest that the variant is associated with “a higher viral load, which may suggest a potential for greater transmissibility,” according to the World Health Organization. As of December 30, the variance had been reported in four other countries.
