{"id":136228,"date":"2021-08-31T07:31:01","date_gmt":"2021-08-31T11:31:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/antiguanewsroom.com\/?p=136228"},"modified":"2021-08-31T07:31:01","modified_gmt":"2021-08-31T11:31:01","slug":"south-africa-scientists-monitoring-new-coronavirus-variant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/antiguanewsroom.com\/south-africa-scientists-monitoring-new-coronavirus-variant\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa scientists monitoring new coronavirus variant"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Scientists in South Africa are monitoring a new coronavirus variant with an unusually high mutation rate, and whose frequency has gradually increased in recent months, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases said Monday.<\/p>

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The variant, known as C.1.2., was flagged last week by the KwaZulu-Natal Research and Innovation and Sequencing Platform in a preprint study that has yet to be peer reviewed.<\/p>\n

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While the majority of South Africa\u2019s coronavirus cases are currently caused by the Delta variant \u2014 first detected in India \u2014 C.1.2. caught scientists\u2019 attention because its mutation is almost twice as fast as observed in other global variants.<\/p>

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Its frequency remains relatively low, however, and it has so far been detected in less than three per cent of genomes sequenced since it was first picked up in May \u2014 although this has increased from 0.2 to two per cent last month.<\/p>

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NICD scientists on Monday said C.1.2. was only \u201cpresent at very low levels\u201d and that it was too early to predict how it might evolve.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this stage we do not have experimental data to confirm how it reacts in terms of sensitivity to antibodies,\u201d NICD researcher Penny Moore said during a virtual press briefing.<\/p>

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But \u201cwe have considerable confidence that the vaccines that are being rolled out in South Africa will continue to protect us against severe illness and death,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

So far C.1.2 has been detected in all nine of South Africa\u2019s provinces, as well as in other parts of the world including China, Mauritius, New Zealand and Britain.<\/p>

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It is however not frequent enough to qualify as a \u201cvariant of interest\u201d or a \u201cvariant of concern\u201d such as the highly transmissible Delta and Beta variants, which emerged in South Africa late last year.<\/p>

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South Africa is the continent\u2019s hardest hit country with over 2.7 million COVID cases reported to date, of which at least 81,830 have been fatal.<\/p>\n

The Beta variant drove a second wave of infections in December and January, and the country is now grappling with a persistent third Delta-dominated wave predicted to overlap with a looming fourth.<\/p>\n

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Scientists in South Africa are monitoring a new coronavirus variant with an unusually high mutation rate, and whose frequency has gradually increased in recent months, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases said Monday. The variant, known as C.1.2., was flagged last week by the KwaZulu-Natal Research and Innovation and Sequencing Platform in a preprint study […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":136229,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-136228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regional"],"yoast_head":"\nSouth Africa scientists monitoring new coronavirus variant - Antigua News Room<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/antiguanewsroom.com\/south-africa-scientists-monitoring-new-coronavirus-variant\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"South Africa scientists monitoring new coronavirus variant\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Scientists in South Africa are monitoring a new coronavirus variant with an unusually high mutation rate, and whose frequency has gradually increased in recent months, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases said Monday. 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