Government responds to new Covid mutation in South Africa
Health minister Joe Phaahla says that there is no need for travel restrictions or any internal restrictions – like lockdown – to deal with a new subvariant of Covid-19 that was detected in the country this past week.
Alarms were raised when a new ‘variant’ of the Covid-19 virus – XBB.1.5, or ‘Kraken’ as it is colloquially referred to – was detected in Stellenbosch this past week.
Phaahla said that the detection was in a random sample in the Western Cape, and there isn’t a guarantee that it was even from a resident in the province, as it could have easily come from a traveller. He also stressed that the mutation wasn’t a new variant, as has been reported, but rather a subvariant of the Omicron virus.
“What we do know is that the Covid variant of concern that remains dominant in the world is the Omicron variant,” he said. “It’s only when there have been significant mutations in the makeup of the virus that it becomes a new variant.”
“Omicron remains the dominant variant at 97% to 98% of circulating infections. The Omicron has had over 100 sub-variants since it was detected,” he said.
Globally there has been a 25% increase in Covid infections since the start of December, with 14 million new infections. The countries leading the increase are Japan, South Korea, the USA, China and Brazil – making up 70% of the new infections.
The Omicron variant is still dominating in China, and the Kraken subvariant is becoming more prominent in the USA, circulating in over 6% of infections, the minister said.
“While the subvariants or sublineages have shown different levels of transmissibility, there has been no marked change in the levels of severity of infection,” Phaahla said.
The minister said that the government has consulted with the various advisory committees and the World Health Organisation over the subvariant, and in both cases, the advice received is that there is no need to impose travel restrictions on any country, including China.
There is also no need for any internal restrictions (ie, lockdown) in the country.
However, the government has been advised to do the following:
- Increase the rate of Covid testing;
- Encouraging people with symptoms to get tested and see their doctors;
- Increase surveillance of wastewater testing for Covid, as well as samples from aircraft, particularly for travellers coming from high-risk countries;
- Reinvigorate the vaccination campaign to encourage South Africans to get the jab;
- Age and timeline guidance for booster shots will be updated in the next few days.
The minister said that provinces have already been alerted to these recommendations, and Covid-19 testing should be ramped up across the country.
Read: Government meeting with scientists over new Covid variant in South Africa
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