A HUNT has been launched to locate hundreds of passengers who recently arrived in South Africa from South Africa. This is after a new Covid strain was found.
This alarm comes as UK officials sound the alarm tonight about the B.1.1.529 variant. It has the potential to evade immunity that has been built up through vaccinations or prior infection.
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Hundreds of South African migrants have arrived in the UK in recent days. Officials in the UK are holding urgent talks to determine how best to address the threat.
Sajid Javid, the Health Minister, has announced that flights from South Africa and neighboring countries Namibia, Lesotho Botswana Botswana Eswatini, Botswana, Eswatini, and Zimbabwe will be temporarily halted at noon tomorrow. UK citizens must then quarantine.
He stated, “We will require anyone arriving from these countries at 4am Sunday to quarantine in hotels.
“If they arrive before the deadline, they should self isolate at home and do a PCR test on both day two and day eight.
“If anyone has arrived from any of those countries over the last 10 days, we would ask them to take PCR tests.”
He also added: “The early indication we have of this variant is it may be more transmissible than the Delta variant and the vaccines that we currently have may be less effective against it.”
No confirmed cases have been reported in the UK of this new variant.
Javid, however, added: “Our scientists are deeply concerned about this variant. I’m concerned, of course, that’s one of the reasons we have taken this action today.”
Asked what the situation would mean for the UK over the coming weeks, with Christmas approaching, Mr Javid said: “We’ve got plans in place, as people know, for the spread of this infection here in the UK and we have contingency plans — the so-called Plan B.
“But today’s announcement, this is about a new variant from South Africa — it’s been detected in South Africa and Botswana — and this is about being cautious and taking action and trying to protect, as best we can, our borders.”
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It has 32 mutations and is the most developed so far. Experts have warned that it could be even more advanced than Delta.
This variant is not yet available in the UK. The number of cases is still low.
South Africa has seen an increase in Covid cases over the past few days. The infection of the variant, dubbed Botswana, has tripled since its first discovery.
It is just two weeks after the variant was first discovered in the neighbouring nation.
Although less than 100 cases have been identified so far, experts are still investigating the complex mutations.
Director of Covid surveillance in South Africa’s province of Tulio De Oliveir warned that it could be in almost every part of the country.
He suggested that the variant could be more effective in infecting vaccine-eligible people than Delta, which is the current global dominant strain. This is because it contains five times more mutations at a particular part that antibodies can bind to.
The expert stated that it was a “very unusual constellation of mutations”It was also a “reason for concern”.
“A Major Threat”
South Africa’s Health Minister Joe Phaahla described it as “a major threat”.
Francois Balloux Professor of Computational Systems Biology and UCL Genetics Institute Director, UCL Genetics Institute said that he expected it to be difficult to recognize by neutralizing antibodies relative to Alpha and Delta.
“It is hard to predict how transmissible this may be at this stage.
“For the time being, it should be closely monitored and analysed, but there is no reason to get overly concerned, unless it starts going up in frequency in the near future.”
However, experts believe that multiple mutations may actually work against this virus and make it unstable.
It is believed to be an offshoot from an older variant, B.1.1. It has been discovered in South Africa and Botswana as well as Hong Kong.
Hong Kong’s infection was caused by an infected person who had traveled from South Africa. This raised fears it could spread to other countries.
[A]A very rare combination of mutations.
Professor Tulio de Oliveir
Experts warn that it may be more effective at spreading vaccines than it is at escaping them.
Dr Tom Peacock from Imperial College is a virologist and tweeted about his discovery, saying that it was the first time that he had seen two mutations in the same variant.
Expert described the mutation profile for the coronavirus as “really awful”.
He said, “Exporting to Asia suggests that this may be more common than just sequences would indicate.”
“This could also be a concern due to the very long branches and high number of spike mutations. This is predicted escape from monoclonal antibodies.
“Worth emphasising this is at super low numbers right now in a region of Africa that is fairly well sampled, however it very very much should be monitored due to that horrific spike profile (would take a guess that this would be worse antigenically than nearly anything else about).”
‘REALLY AWFUL’
Professor Lawrence Young, a Warwick Medical School virologist, MailOnlineIt “looks like”This variant could be more efficient at avoiding vaccine immunity.
He added, “It’s always hard to say just looking at.” [mutations]It all depends on how your immune system reacts to the changes.
“But it looks like just because of the severe load of [mutations] — some of which we know about quite a bit in terms of harming transmission — it looks like it might be slightly more worrying than the South African variant.”
The new variant contains mutations K417N & E484A, which are related to previous strains that were capable of avoiding vaccines.
It also contains the N440K found on Delta and S477N on New York variants, which are both linked to antibody escape.
It also contains the mutation N501Y, which makes viruses more transmissible. This mutation was previously observed on the fast-spreading Alpha version.
It is not uncommon to find new variants, and they are rarely spread to a group of cases.
They can quickly become extinct if they are found in a country with a stronger variant.
Dr Meera Chand (Covid-19 Incident Director at UKHSA) said that the UK Health Security Agency is continuously monitoring the status and development of SARS-CoV-2 variants worldwide in partnership with international scientific bodies.
“As it is the nature of viruses that mutations occur frequently, and at random,” it is not unusual to see cases with new mutations.
“Any variants showing evidence of spread are rapidly assessed.”
A spokesperson from UKSHA said that they are investigating and monitoring this variant.
Scientists claim that the super dominant Delta could undergo self-extinction. It was already reported in one area of the world.
Japan is only recording 140 cases per day despite being infected by the Delta strain just three months ago.
Japan’s genetic experts believe that Delta is responsible for the sudden decline in coronavirus.
Delta was already far more transmissible than the original “Wuhan”China strain of the virus will be available in late 2019
And other variations of Delta have been shown to cause fewer symptoms, carry immune-escaping mutations, or be even more fast-spreading.
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