@DrZweliMkhize
The Health Department has announced a new variant of the coronavirus which it said was first detected in Nelson Mandela Bay.
This was announced on Friday by the Health Minister, Dr. Zweli Mkhize who said a genomics team, led by the Kwazulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform, had sequenced hundreds of samples from across the country since the beginning of the pandemic in March.
“They noticed that a particular variant has increasingly dominated the findings of the samples collected in the past two months,” Mkhize said.
Explaining the findings, Professor Salim Abdool Karim said the second wave is showing some early signs that it is spreading faster than the first wave.
“We don’t know where it came from and we don’t know why it formed. We found the first in Nelson Mandela Bay, but we don’t know if it originated in Nelson Mandela Bay. It is too early to tell if it is more severe,” he said.
Professor Karim said preliminary data suggests that the virus that was now dominating in the second wave is spreading faster than the first wave.
However, he said: “We have not seen any red flags looking at our current death information,” he said.
Professor Karim said it was an unusual variant that has also been reported in other countries, including the UK, Australia, and several others. “In our country, we are finding between 80 and 90% of the virus is this 501.V2 mutant,” he said.
Concluding the briefing, Mkhize said that while this mutation is a cause for concern, there is no reason to panic.
“We appeal to all the media and medical and scientific community to focus on the facts and avoid entering into speculation or issue unproven statements and generate panic and disinformation.”
“This research underlines the need for all of us all to loyally adhere to the practice of non-pharmaceutical interventions which work as effectively in any pandemic of this nature including COVID-19 as we have known it and is just as effective to a mutant variant of the same virus,” he said.
“Nothing will beat the rigid implementation of wearing masks, use of hand sanitizer and washing with soap and distancing. Many countries experienced a second wave that was more severe than the first – even where no mutations were reported.
Mkhize said there is no evidence to suggest a need to change in clinical treatment and patient management of COVID-19 in the second wave to date and that this discovery does not necessitate additional restrictive measures.
