South Africa’s well being ministry stated on Saturday it had detected the primary 4 circumstances of a brand new coronavirus variant that emerged in India and was accountable for a surge of infections and deaths within the Asian nation.
Testing had additionally picked up 11 circumstances of the variant B.1.1.7 first detected within the UK, the well being ministry stated in a press release.
“The Network for Genomic Surveillance in South Africa confirmed immediately that two variants of concern, apart from the B.1.351 already dominating in South Africa, have been detected,” Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said.
The four positive cases were detected in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal provinces, and all had a history of travel to India, which on Saturday recorded its highest ever single-day COVID-19 death toll of 4,187 fatalities.
Of the 11 people infected with the UK variant, eight were found in the Western Cape, Mkhize said, adding that the B.1.1.7 strain was detected in community samples and that this suggested community transmission had already set in.
Africa’s worst-hit country in terms of infections and fatalities, South Africa’s second wave was driven by its own variant that quickly dominated infections countrywide.
South Africa has ordered tens of millions of vaccine doses from Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer as it looks to ramp up its slow mass vaccination campaign, with only 382,480 frontline healthcare workers inoculated out of a population of 60 million.
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