South African coronavirus variant ‘more of a problem’ than the British

A patient with the Covid-19 breathes oxygen on December 29, 2020 in the Covid-19 ward at Khayelitsha Hospital, about 35 km from the city center of Cape Town.

RODGER BOSCH | AFP | Getty Images

A variant of the coronavirus identified in South Africa is more problematic than the strain found in the UK, the British health minister said, as both strains are still spreading rapidly.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock told the BBC on Monday that the variant found in South Africa was particularly worrying.

“I am incredibly concerned about the South African variant, which is why we have taken the action to restrict all flights from South Africa,” he told the BBC program Today.

“This is a very, very important problem … and it’s an even bigger problem than the British new variant.”

Both the UK and South Africa are struggling with an increase in Covid-19 infections, which are mainly attributed to new mutations in the virus that make them more transmissible.

The UK’s new variant was first identified in December in Kent, southern England. The British authorities have warned the World Health Organization about its rise.

Experts note that although the new variant makes the virus spread more easily, it does not seem to make it more deadly. Nevertheless, British hospitals are under pressure due to a dramatic increase in infections and admissions.

Vaccination effectiveness

Questions have been raised about how the coronavirus vaccines will work against the new variants.

A number of experts have said they expect vaccines, such as those from Pfizer and BioNTech, and the University of Oxford / AstraZeneca – to protect against the new strains.

Earlier in December, WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan tried to allay fears about the variant, telling the BBC that it was “very unlikely” that the latest mutations would cause the current vaccines to not work. The WHO said further investigations were needed “to understand the impact of specific mutations on viral traits and the efficacy of diagnostic, therapeutic and vaccine.”

Regius Professor of Medicine at the University of Oxford, John Bell, said on Sunday that the variant identified in South Africa was, however, of concern in this regard.

“They both have different, different mutations, so it’s not a single mutation,” he told Times Radio. “And the mutations associated with the South African form are really reasonable changes in the structure of the protein (‘virus’).”

He said there were questions as to whether the vaccines Pfizer / BioNTech and Oxford University / AstraZeneca would be “inappropriate” in the presence of such mutations.

The team behind the University of Oxford investigated the effect of the variant on the vaccine, he said, adding that his gut felt it would still be effective against the stress identified in the UK, but he was more uncertain about the one in South Africa.

However, he told the radio station that if the vaccine does not work on this variant, it is likely that the vaccines can be adapted and that it will not last as long as a year.

More connections

Vaccinations against Coronavirus are the only bright spot in a pandemic that continues to rage in the West. On Monday, the UK began launching the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine after using the Pfizer / BioNTech shot in December.

Meanwhile, restrictions on public life continue and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has indicated that more restrictions could be imposed in England. Many parts of the country are already effectively under lock and key, with everything but essential shops closed and people being told to stay at home as much as possible. Yet further restrictions can be imposed in parts of the country with more relaxed measures.

The UK has now reported more than 2.6 million cases of the virus and so far more than 75,000 deaths, according to a version from Johns Hopkins University, and the new variant of the virus has led to an increase in infections in London and the south-east. began to appear in other parts of the country.

In South Africa, more than 1.1 million cases were recorded, and almost 30,000 deaths and the new tribe became predominant in the Western Cape, Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.

The variant originally identified in the UK has also been discovered in some European countries and the US, prompting many countries to ban flights from the UK. The United Kingdom has banned visitors from South Africa.

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