A new variant of COVID-19 appears in Nigeria

Nairobi, Kenya – Another new variant of coronavirus appears to have appeared in Nigeria, according to the African head of public health, on Thursday, although more research is needed.

“It’s a separate line from the UK and South Africa,” the director of the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, John Nkengasong, told reporters. The CDC in Nigeria and the African Center of Excellence for the Genome of Infectious Diseases in that country – the most populous in Africa – will test several samples.

“Give us some time“It’s still too early.”

The alert for a possible new variant is due to two out of three genetic sequences, he said, although this and the alert declared in South Africa at the end of last week led to an emergency meeting of the African CDC this week.

Infections are on the rise in parts of the continent.

The new variant in South Africa is now predominant in that country, Nkengasong said, with confirmed infections approaching one million patients. Although the variant spreads rapidly and has a high viral load, it is not yet clear whether it causes more serious diseases, he said.

“We believe this mutation will have no effect” on the implementation of COVID-19 vaccines on the continent, he said of the South African version.

South Africa’s health minister said late Wednesday that there was an “alarming rate of spread” of the virus across the country, with more than 14,000 new cases confirmed in the last day, including more than 400 deaths. The country has added more than 950,000 cases and the disease is not recovering, Zwelini Mkhize said in a statement.

More than 2.5 million cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed in Africa, or 3.3% of cases worldwide. Infections on the mainland have risen 10.9 percent in the past four weeks, Nkengasong said, including a 52 percent increase in Nigeria and a 40 percent increase in South Africa.