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Members of the South African police with face masks
Photo: Michele Spatari / AFP
In the past few weeks, it has been rather quiet about new, worrying variants of the coronavirus.
Globally, Delta is still on the rise, displacing weaker mutations of the virus.
But a new form of Sars-CoV-2 has now emerged in Africa that worries scientists. So far it only runs under the abbreviation B.1.1.52. A few cases are currently rampant in South Africa, including Botswana. In addition, a traveler carried the virus to Hong Kong. What is special about the variant is its very high number of mutations, said the virologist Tulio de Oliveira at a press conference on Thursday.
According to this, B.1.1.52 has 32 mutations in the spike protein, the part of the virus with which it docks and penetrates the human host cells. And also the part that is decisive for the mode of action of most vaccines. The sheer number of spike mutations does not necessarily say anything about the danger they pose. But the delta variant, with eight mutations, has significantly fewer changes in comparison.
The effectiveness of the vaccine against this virus variant is still unclear, as are details of its distribution. More data is needed for this. South Africa's Minister of Health Joe Phaahla described the variant as seriously worrying and the cause of an exponential increase in the number of infections. So far, around a hundred cases have been detected from sequenced samples.
Summer is just beginning on the Cape, and the number of corona evidence would actually decrease with a seasonal virus like Sars-CoV-2. But in Gauteng, the most populous province in which Johannesburg is also located, the numbers have recently increased massively. At the beginning of the month the region still recorded around a hundred new infections, on Wednesday the mark rose to 1200. According to the scientists, up to 90 percent of the new cases in Gauteng could go back to B.1.1.529. The variant may also have spread to the other eight provinces in the country. "Should it be confirmed that the current outbreak is caused by this variant, it would be an indication of a selection advantage," said the Viennese gene expert Ulrich Elling on Twitter.
South Africa has requested an emergency meeting of a World Health Organization (WHO) working group on virus development for Friday to discuss the new variant.
Health Secretary Joe Phaahla said it was too early to say whether the government would impose stricter restrictions in response to the new variant.
"Although the data are manageable, our experts are working with all established monitoring systems to understand the new variant and its possible effects," said the South African National Institute for Communicable Diseases in a statement.
The beta version also comes from the chap
With around 2.95 million corona cases and more than 89,600 deaths, South Africa is the hardest-hit country in Africa. It was the first in which the beta variant was discovered last year. In addition, another variant was detected at the beginning of this year, C.1.2. However, it has not displaced the more common delta variant and only makes up a small percentage of the genomes sequenced in recent months. Beta is also just one of four variants that the WHO has classified as of concern because there is evidence that it is more contagious and vaccines are less effective against it.
Mutations are random changes in the genome that occur when the virus reproduces in the human body.
This process is ongoing and is part of the virus' natural evolution.
Researchers had already stated at the beginning of the pandemic that such changes in the virus can be expected.
Thousands of mutations are now known, and often several occur in a virus genome.
Most of them are unproblematic.
But some give the pathogen an advantage - for example by making it easier to transmit.
And that can mean that such variants spread more widely and prevail over weaker ones.
joe / Reuters
