(NEW YORK) — As India, the second-most populous country in the world, grapples with a devastating second wave of COVID-19 infections that has pushed its health system to the brink of collapse, officials in Africa, the world’s second-largest continent, are on high alert. “What’s happening in India must not happen here,” Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, the [.]
New Covid-19 variant in South Africa ‘of concern at a global level’ WHO
11 May 2021
Pharmacy cashier Silvia Carballo wearing a face mask and gloves counts bills. (Photo by Marcelo Endelli/Getty Images)
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has classified the Covid-19 B.1.617 variant as one of concern, but the agency maintains that available vaccines remain effective “at preventing disease and death in people infected with this variant”.
The B.1.617 variant, first detected in India, was previously viewed as one of interest. New data of the variant’s particular lineage B.1.617.2 have shown a rapid spread to countries across the world, including in South Africa.
Advertisement
Cape Town, South Africa: With Africa accounting for only around 2 per cent of global coronavirus vaccinations, health officials on the continent are looking warily at waves of infections sweeping India and elsewhere that have stoked fears of a long tail end of the pandemic.
Current timelines for mass vaccination campaigns in most African countries run well into next year - if not further.
Confirmed cases have been rising steadily in many African countries, though quick but economically destructive restrictions on movement have clamped down surges before theyâve gotten out of control in most places.
Health workers in protective suits work at a makeshift emergency unit at Steve Biko Academic Hospital in Pretoria, South Africa.