Another new variant of the coronavirus appears to have emerged in Nigeria, Africa’s top public health official said on Thursday, but more research is needed.
“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 some 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 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. The country has more than 950,000 infections and COVID-19 is “relentless,” Zwelini Mkhize said in a statement.
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.
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