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meIt was a lavish press conference invited by the South African Minister of Health, Zweli Mkhize, on Friday and shared the podium with the country’s leading doctors. And what they had to say is causing great concern around the world.
Because a similar mutation of the corona virus has been discovered in South Africa as in England. The variant called 501st V2 could be behind the exponential spread of the second wave of infections in the country, suspects Mkhize, who is one of the most capable people in President Cyril Ramaphosa’s cabinet. Around 58 million people live in South Africa, and this week the country passed the 10,000 daily infection threshold for the first time since early August.
And 90 percent of the samples for which a genome analysis was most recently initiated in South Africa showed the 501st V2 variant; Although this is not representative, attention was focused on the critical points. So far there is no indication of a higher mortality rate than in the first wave in South Africa. However, a higher proportion of younger people without risk factors got sick there in recent weeks than before. The mutation in the virus is spreading faster than the first wave, the researchers said, and is now believed to be in most of South Africa’s provinces.
As head of the Department of Medical Virology at the University of Stellenbosch, the German scientist Wolfgang Preiser was involved in the discovery of the new variant. “The variations in England and South Africa are similar, but they probably developed independently of each other,” says Preiser WELT.
The rather rapid spread can possibly be explained by a greater binding force to the surface molecule on the target cell. “That could mean more infectivity. One clue to this is that we found a higher viral load in patients with this variant of the virus. But these are very early dates and have yet to be confirmed. ”
The research team is currently investigating whether changes in the surface protein mean that the antibodies, which are formed by natural infection or vaccination, bind worse and are therefore less effective. “That is speculation currently, we are also investigating it on the basis of repeat infections,” says Preiser, “if it is not possible to stop the spread of the virus, then one should expect such variants to emerge at some point.”
Laboratory technicians test a blood sample for HIV infection at the HIV and Reproductive Health Institute (RHI) in Johannesburg.
Source: dpa / Denis Farrell
The variant is assumed to have originated in the structurally weak Eastern Cape, Preisler says. An unsubstantiated theory is that there are large numbers of poorly treated HIV patients in whom the virus is likely to multiply better and for a longer period in the body than in people with an intact immune system. The virus spread from there to other provinces. Several employees with recent infections also got into a fight in his lab.
Health Minister Mkhize sees all this as “no need to panic”, masks, disinfecting and keeping your distance are ultimately also effective against this mutation. It is apparently in line with President Ramaphosa, who did not comment on the new development until Sunday night.
Maximilian Gertler, epidemiologist and medical director of the corona testing center at the Charité in Berlin, is very concerned about the evidence of increased risk of infection. “It can hardly be assumed that a more contagious variant will simply be limited to England and South Africa,” Gertler told WELT, “it has obviously been around for months and has obviously already crossed national borders.”
This is particularly dangerous for countries with weak treatment structures, as is the case in many African countries: “Here, preventing new infections is the most important tool in the fight against the epidemic.” However, Gertler cautions against drawing premature conclusions: “There is, for example Until now there is no evidence that the new variant leads to infections more frequently in vaccinated people.”
Unlike England, the South African government has not adopted additional restrictions on public life. Last Monday, when the mutation was not yet publicly known, Ramaphosa had reacted to the increase in cases with more cosmetic adjustments, such as a slightly longer night curfew and the closure of individual beaches. The restaurants, however, remain open.
It is obvious that in South Africa, after the considerable economic damage of the first blockade (the economy contracted by 51 percent in the second quarter compared to the same period last year), decisions will be based largely on economic criteria. For the first time in the history of democracy, a loan had to be requested from the International Monetary Fund, which the government viewed with considerable skepticism. The country is still at the lowest level of measurement “Level 1”. In April and May, when the virus didn’t spread as fast as it is these days, you were at “Level 5”.
In general, people seemed more vigilant at the time: In recent days, South Africa was embarrassed when the government admitted that it had missed the deadline for a vaccine depot to the World Health Organization. Mkhize stated that this has already been compensated for. The opposition complained that the overall vaccination strategy lacked the necessary transparency.
Germany, however, reacts decisively to the news from the Cape. On Sunday night, Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU) announced on ARD that on Monday all entry into England from South Africa would also be restricted with a regulation, “because there is also a comparable mutation of the virus there.” It is not yet clear what this means for German tourists who, despite the pandemic and against urgent appeals from the German government, are spending their Christmas holidays in South Africa.
In April and May, the German embassy organized the return flight of 4,000 stranded tourists from Cape Town alone, a huge effort. One can only speculate how many German vacationers are currently in South Africa, there is no obligation to register. But the demand was not as low as Lufthansa thought a few months ago. Meanwhile, the greatly reduced flight connections had increased somewhat.
With a total of 921,000 confirmed cases and 24,691 deaths since the start of the pandemic, South Africa is by far the worst affected African country. The actual number of infections is likely to be much higher, despite the extremely tight blockage at times. In studies, for example, antibodies to the coronavirus were found in about 40 percent of blood samples from HIV patients and pregnant women.
