Nairobi, Kenya – Another new variant of the coronavirus appears to have originated in Nigeria, Africa’s top public health official said Thursday, but added that further research was needed.
The discovery could add to new alarm in the pandemic after similar variants were announced in Britain and South Africa, leading to the rapid return of international travel restrictions and other measures just as the world enters a major holiday season.
“It is a descendant of the UK and South Africa,” the head of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, John Nkengasong, told reporters. He said the Nigeria CDC and the African Center of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases in that country – Africa’s most populous country – will analyze more samples.
“Give us some time … It’s very early,” he said.
The warning about the apparent new variant was based on two or three genetic sequences, he said, but that and South Africa’s warning late last week were enough to trigger an emergency meeting of the Africa CDC this week.
The variant was found in two patient samples collected in Osun state, Nigeria, on Aug. 3 and Oct. 9, according to a working research paper from The Associated Press.
Unlike the variant seen in the UK, “we have not observed such a rapid increase in parentage in Nigeria and have no evidence to suggest that the P681H variant is contributing to increased transmission of the virus. in Nigeria. The relative difference in the scale of genomic surveillance in Nigeria versus the UK may imply a reduced ability to detect such changes, ”the paper said.
The news comes as infections are on the rise again in parts of the African continent.
The new variant in South Africa is now predominant there, Nkengasong said, as confirmed infections in the country approach 1 million. Although the variant is rapidly transmitted and the viral loads are higher, it is not yet clear whether this leads to a more serious disease, he said.
“We don’t think this mutation will have any effect” on the deployment of COVID-19 vaccines on the continent, he said of the South African variant.
South Africa’s Health Minister announced an “alarming spread” in that country late Wednesday, with more than 14,000 new cases confirmed in the past day, including more than 400 deaths. It was the largest one-day increase in cases.
The country has more than 950,000 infections and COVID-19 is “unrelenting,” said Health Minister Zwelini Mkhize.
The African continent now has more than 2.5 million confirmed cases, or 3.3% of the global cases. Infections across the continent are up 10.9% in the past four weeks, Nkengasong said, including a 52% increase in Nigeria and 40% in South Africa.
Nigeria now has more than 80,000 confirmed coronavirus cases.
For the first time since the confirmation of the first virus case in sub-Saharan Africa in February, Nigeria is in the spotlight during this pandemic as infections increase.
“In recent weeks we have had a massive increase in the number of samples sent to the (Nigeria CDC) reference laboratory,” CDC Director General Chikwe Ihekweazu tweeted Thursday. “This has resulted in an unusual delay in testing, but we are working around the clock,” with many colleagues shortening their holidays and returning to work.