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In Nigeria, another new strain of coronavirus was discovered. It differs from the variants that have appeared in the UK and South Africa.
This was reported by Reuters with reference to the director of the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) John Nkengasong. He stressed that more research is needed to study the mutant.
Over the past week, Nigeria reported a 52% increase in cases and South Africa a 40% increase, Nkengasong said.
He said there is so far no evidence that the new strain has contributed to the rapid spread of COVID-19 in the country.
Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa with a population of more than 200 million, has reported fewer coronavirus cases than many other states on the continent. On Wednesday, December 23, the total number of infected exceeded 80 thousand. For the first time this month, the daily incidence rate is over 1000.
There are more than 2.5 million cases of coronavirus in Africa, which represents 3.3% of the global total, according to the African Center for Disease Control.
The faster-spreading new strain, discovered in South Africa on December 18, is now predominant, Nkengasong said, although, as with the new variant in the UK, there is no evidence that it is causing more serious disease.
Nkengasong noted that the CDC does not believe that the coronavirus mutation in South Africa will affect the deployment of the COVID-19 vaccine on the continent.
As OBOZREVATEL reported, a new type of highly infectious coronavirus has been discovered in Britain. In this context, dozens of countries have already limited air traffic with the United Kingdom.
Subsequently, another new strain of coronavirus was discovered in the UK, which turned out to be more intense than the previous one. The two recently identified cases are contacts of patients who have traveled from South Africa in recent weeks.
