The variant is called «C. 1.2 », was first discovered in South Africa in May, and has later become England, China, Congo, Mauritius, New Zealand, Portugal and Switzerland.
The South African National Institute of Infectious Diseases is on their website has posted a study on the new variant.
Both American Bloomberg and Australian News.com has discussed the report.
Turns full alarm
Follow closely
In May, the new variant accounted for 0.2 per cent of the genetic material in DNA sequencing in South Africa. It has risen to 1.6 per cent in June, to 2 per cent in July.
– It is still a very small percentage, but we keep a really good eye on it, says Tullio de Oliveira in the report, he is the leader of the research group.
South Africa has been at the forefront of research on the coronavirus, and it was South African researchers who discovered the Beta variant in 2020.
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– Reason for concern
The US-China epidemiologist Eric-Feigl Ding shared the report Twitter, and shared their thoughts on the findings that have been made.
– There is reason for concern that the new variant is more contagious than the variants we have now, he writes, and continues:
– It also means that the C12 variant has mutated so quickly and so far that this is the mutated variant that is furthest away from the original Wuhan 1.0 variant. This can create problems for the 1.0 vaccine.
Races against the authorities
The report shows that the new variant is mutating almost twice as fast as the global mutation rate in the world at the moment.
Both he and the researchers behind the article believe the new variant is a threat to immunity.
– These mutations, plus changes in other parts of the virus, will help the virus avoid antibodies and the immune response, including in patients who have already been infected with the Alpha or Beta variant.
Warns
No major outbreaks of the new variant have been registered so far, but Ding warns against having to gather large crowds.
Alarms: – The number can be high
He specifically refers to the music festival in English Cornwall which had over 500,000 visitors. Where 5,000 young people were infected, and that it is suspected that a new version of the Delta variant spread.
There have so far been four main variants of the coronavirus, with the Delta variant first discovered in India as the most contagious, and which ensures that infection rates are currently increasing worldwide.
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