Science s COVID-19 reporting is supported by the Heising-Simons Foundation
Testing for COVID-19 at Johannesburg s airport in January. A variant of concern that arose in South Africa has spread around the world.
PHOTO: GUILLEM SARTORIO/BLOOMBERG/GETTY IMAGES
Last month, Gytis Dudas was tracking a concerning new coronavirus variant that had triggered an outbreak of COVID-19 in his native Lithuania and appeared sporadically elsewhere in Europe and in the United States. Exploring an international database of coronavirus genomes, Dudas found a crucial clue: One sample of the new SARS-CoV-2 variant came from a person who had recently flown to France from Cameroon. A collaborator, Guy Baele of KU Leuven, soon identified six more viral sequences from people in Europe who had traveled there from Cameroon. But then their quest to pinpoint the variant s origins hit a wall: Cameroon had only uploaded 48 viral genomes to the global sequence repository called GISAID. None included the variant.
Blind spots thwart global coronavirus tracking sciencemag.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from sciencemag.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
40,000 Johnson & Johnson vaccines touchdown in SA Molefe Seeletsa
The current inoculation of healthcare workers is part of an extended study as the Johnson and Johnson vaccine is yet to receive authority from the health product regulator of South Africa. Picture: Michel Bega This now pushes the total number of vaccines received to 200,000 after the first and second batches of the doses last month.
South Africa has received more Johnson & Johnson (J&J) Covid-19 vaccines, which arrived in the country on Saturday, 13 March.
This is according to South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) chairperson, professor Glenda Gray.
The country has since received 40,000 more J&J vaccine doses as government looks to complete the first phase of its vaccination programme involvi
Donât let your guard down before more vaccines roll out – expert Nica Richards
Healthcare workers administer the first batch of Johnson and Johnson vaccines at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto, 17 February 2021, as health workers receive the first jabs of the vaccine in the fight against the coronvirus pandemic. Picture: Michel Bega The new B.1.1.7 has spread to almost 10 countries, and in many countries, is as dominant as South Africaâs 501Y.V2 variant.Â
In an ideal world, the Covid-19 Johnson & Johnson jab would be licensed, and the world could stand a chance of returning to some semblance of normality.Â
SA s newly detected Covid-19 variants aren t major cause for concern – The Citizen citizen.co.za - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from citizen.co.za Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.