JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South Africa has identified a new variant of coronavirus that is causing a second wave of infections, the health minister said on Friday, days after Britain said it had found a new variant of growth cases of the virus.
“We convened this public briefing today to announce that a variant of the SARS-VOC-2 virus – now called variant 501.V2 – has been identified by scientists in the field of our genomics in South Africa,” he wrote in the tweet. Health Minister Zweli Mkhize.
“The evidence that has been collected therefore strongly suggests that the current second wave we are experiencing is driven by this new variant,” Mkhize added.
South Africa has the highest number of coronavirus infections in Africa, approaching 900,000, with over 20,000 associated deaths. A resurgence of cases has made the government tighten restrictions on society this week.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday it was in touch with South African researchers who had identified the new variant.
The global body added that there was no indication that there had been any changes in the behavior of the new strain of the virus.
“We are working with them with our working group on the evolution of the SARS-VOC-2 virus. They are developing the virus in the country and working with researchers to determine any changes in the behavior of the virus in terms of transmission,” WHO epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove , said a press conference in Geneva.
South African health officials said the new variant appears to be spreading faster than the previous iteration, but that it is too early to say its severity and whether current vaccines will work against it.
“In the UK they have also identified a new variant … there are quite a few similarities between the two offspring … there are also a similar number of mutations,” said Prof. Tulio de Oliviera, a member of the government genomics consortium in a televised briefing.
(Reporting by Mfune Toyana and Promit Mukherjee; Additional reporting by Silke Koltrowitz in Geneva; Editing by Frances Kerry and Mark Potter)