South African scientists announced a new highly mutated variant on Thursday.
Johannesburg:
A leading epidemiologist warns the newly discovered ‘Omicron’ variant that is likely to drive a surge in coronavirus cases in South Africa could triple daily infections this week, a leading epidemiologist warned Monday.
Health monitors reported more than 2,800 new infections on Sunday, up from a daily average of 500 in the previous week and 275 in the previous week.
“We can expect that the transmission is higher and so we will get more cases quickly,” Dr Salim Abdool Karim said at an online press conference of the Ministry of Health.
“I expect we’ll be processing over 10,000 cases by the end of the week every day (and) see pressure on hospitals within the next two, three weeks.”
South African scientists announced a new mutant variant on Thursday, blaming it for a spike in infections in Africa’s worst-affected country.
Hospitalizations more than doubled in the past month in Gauteng, South Africa’s most populous province and the epicenter of the new outbreak, according to official figures.
Health officials say the province has entered a fourth wave of infections, which are expected to spread to the rest of the country later this year.
South Africa has recorded 2.9 million cases and 89,797 deaths, although these numbers, relative to its population, are still significantly lower than other hard-hit countries , especially in Europe.
Health Secretary Joe Phaahla said there was “absolutely no need to panic.”
“We’ve been here before,” he said, referring to the Beta variant identified in South Africa last December.
Vaccines ‘robust’
The World Health Organization (WHO) has designated ‘Omicron’ a variant of concern and is still assessing its virulence, although experts agree it is highly infectious.
There is also concern that this variant may be more resistant to certain types of antibodies, although its ability to avoid vaccines is still being evaluated.
The severity of the disease it causes has yet to be determined, although the symptoms observed so far in South Africa have been relatively mild.
“Even if ‘Omicron’ doesn’t get clinically worse, and certainly these anecdotes haven’t sparked any red flags yet… we’ll see (increase in cases) all in all. possibilities due to the rapid transmission rate,” said Karim.
Dozens of countries have implemented travel bans on South Africa and neighboring countries in an effort to contain Omicron, although the variant has now been detected in at least 11 other countries.
President Cyril Ramaphosa on Sunday called on governments around the world to “urgently” and “immediately” reopen their borders with the region.
He accused rich countries of violating a pledge to support tourism in poorer countries they made at the G20 meeting last month, and denounced vaccine inequality.
“The only thing the travel ban will do is further damage the economies of the affected countries,” said Ramaphosa.
He promoted the vaccine as South Africa’s “most powerful tool” to combat the new variant and called on the population to strike.
The government is grappling with vaccine hesitancy and is mulling measures to boost uptake, including mandating vaccinations for certain locations and events.
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from an aggregated feed.)
