Johannesburg (South Africa): South African scientists have detected a new Covid-19 variant that may evade the immune response. The detection is a cause of concern because of its high number of mutations and rapid spread among young people in Gauteng, the country's most populous province, Minister of Health Joe Phaahla said on Thursday.
Briefing the press, Phaahla further added that South Africa has seen a dramatic rise in new cases over the past time, in the past week the daily new cases rapidly increased to more than 1,200 on Wednesday.
Phaahla said that initially, they believed that cases were growing due to gatherings at universities, scientists then notified authorities that "they were observing what looked like a new variant."
"Initially it looked like, you know, it was just some cluster outbreaks, maybe gatherings and so on and some of these were attributed also to some university campuses like TUT (Tshwane University of Technology) area, in the Tshwane Metro. But from yesterday, indication came from our scientist colleagues from the network for genomic surveillance so that indeed they were observing what looked like a new variant."
Identified as B.1.1.529, the new variant, has also been found in Botswana and Hong Kong in travellers from South Africa, he said.