While the world is still processing the news of new COVID-19 variants discovered in the UK and South Africa, a new strain has appeared in Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa with more than 200 million inhabitants . The director of the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) of Africa, John Nkengasong, has been the one who informed of the new strain of coronavirus found in Nigeria. What do we know?
According to experts, the new strain, called P681H , is different from those recently found in the UK and South Africa. They do not currently believe that this new variant is more infectious than previous strains, but Nkengasong has made it clear that scientists need more time to study it before drawing rigorous conclusions.
The virus manifests itself in different combinations to adequately infect humans
At the beginning of December, the African Center of Excellence for the Genomics of Infectious Diseases (Acegid) analyzed 200 samples of the virus and two of them have genetic mutations. This alert comes when infections are increasing again in certain areas of the African continent due to the South African strain that is the predominant there and that has pushed the figures to more than one million infections in this area.
The new variants may also affect the ability of vaccines to fight the virus, although this is not believed to be the case for the UK or South African variant. “We believe that this mutation will have no effect on the deployment of COVID-19 vaccines on the continent .”
While the variant spreads quickly and viral loads are higher, it is not yet clear whether it leads to a more serious illness, experts explain. And it is that, at the moment, it is not clear if it is more infectious or not. “Give us some time … it’s still too early,” said Nkengasong. For now the fatality rate, compared to Western countries, has not increased lately.
Unlike the variant seen in the UK, “we have not seen such a rapid increase in lineage in Nigeria and we have no evidence to indicate that the P681H variant is contributing to increased transmission of the virus in Nigeria,” the CDC report adds. .
How bad is the spread of the new variant?
According to the expert, Nigerian laboratories have received a large number of samples and are overwhelmed, which has caused an unusual delay. It is not clear if the new variant is fueling the increase in the number of cases, but the Nigerian CDC has confidently reported an increase in infection.
“We must warn South Africans that we will have to review current restrictions and consider new measures to ensure that we curb this alarming rate of spread. Unfortunately , COVID-19 is relentless and therefore we cannot afford to be complacent on this. stage of the year, “added the expert.
Apparently, the increase in cases is related to young people accused of ignoring the rules of social distancing at Christmas Eve parties and festive celebrations in general.
What the experts say about the South African strain
“The ‘South African’ variant is different from the UK variant, but both contain an unusually high number of mutations compared to other SARS-CoV-2 lineages. Some of these mutations change protein S, which is cause for concern. Both contain the N501Y mutation, but also many other variants that do not appear to have increased transmission, so the picture is complex. It is essential to act quickly to delimit a highly transmitted infection to prevent it from establishing itself, so preventive quarantine of those who may have been in contact with the SA variant is vital for this. The importance of real-time genomic surveillance in understanding disease patterns is evident. The UK has used genomics throughout the pandemic and was therefore well placed to identify the new variant early in its boom. In other countries that do not have this capacity, it is quite possible that these variants are already in circulation, but currently not identified. It seems that we are entering a particularly dangerous phase of this pandemic, which makes the effective deployment of vaccines even more urgent, “explains Andrew Preston, an expert in microbial pathogenesis at the University of Bath in England to Science Media Center .
