Just as South Africa pulls through a third — and in many ways the worst — wave of coronavirus infections, a new danger has emerged.
Some of the country’s leading medical scientists said this week another variant had been identified in the country, and it’s already spreading across several continents.
It’s yet to be determined if the mutation is more transmissible, can cause more severe disease or evade vaccines more easily than earlier versions of the virus. But the experts are worried.
Photographer: Dwayne Senior/Bloomberg
“It has all of the signatures of immune escape,” Tulio de Oliveira, the director of South Africa’s world-leading gene-sequencing institute known as Krisp, said of the variant’s mutations. The changes indicate an ability to evade the antibodies triggered by vaccines.
South Africa is a victim of its own success when it comes to Covid-19. The country is one of just a few globally that have the expertise to quickly identify and track new virus variants.
That’s good — and bad.
Late in 2020, its scientists identified the variant now known as beta. Instead of being hailed for its swift recognition of a dangerous mutation, British politicians labeled it the South African variant and the resultant travel bans further set back a tourism industry that provides a livelihood for 1.5 million people.
The experts maintain that identifying a variant doesn’t necessarily mean that your country is the origin.
This time, should the mutation — known for now as C.1.2. — spread rapidly and cause havoc across the world, South Africa will have to hope that isn’t another case of “shoot the messenger.’’
— By Antony Sguazzin.
Source: Bloomberg
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