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“It’s a different strain from the UK and South Africa,” said John Nkengasung, director of the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
He said the Nigerian Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the African Center of Excellence in Genomics of Infectious Diseases, in Africa’s most populous country, will analyze more samples.
“Give us some time. It’s still too early,” he added.
He noted that the warning about the new emerging variant was based on two or 3 gene sequences, but that, in addition to the alert from South Africa late last week, it was enough to spur an emergency meeting of the CDC of Africa this week. .
This news comes as infections are on the rise again in parts of the African continent.
Nkengasung said the new variable in South Africa is now prevalent there, with the country’s confirmed infections approaching a million.
He said that while the variant spreads quickly and the viral load is higher, it remains unclear whether or not it leads to more serious illness.
On the new South African mutated virus, Nkengasung said: “We believe that this mutation will not have an impact” on the spread of Covid-19 vaccines on the continent.
And South Africa’s Health Minister Zweleni Mkhize announced “an alarming prevalence” in that country late Wednesday, with more than 14,000 new cases confirmed last day, including more than 400 deaths.
In a statement, Mkhize said that the country has more than 950,000 injured and that Covid-19 is “relentless.”
The African continent now has more than 2.5 million confirmed cases, or 3.3 percent of the world’s cases.
Nkengasung said infections across the continent had risen 10.9 percent in the past four weeks, including a 52 percent increase in Nigeria and a 40 percent increase in South Africa.
