What we need to know about new variant from South Africa?

What do we know about the South African variant, which appeared only two days ago and has already led to some countries changing travel restrictions, stretching global markets?

1 – When and where did it appear? Tuesday November 14-16,

South African scientists announced they had found a small number of variants called  ‘1.1.529′ among samples collected between 14-16 November.

100 cases carrying the new variant were identified in the country. Most of them are reported to be from the most densely populated Gauteng region.

The new variant is dominant in PCR tests and is relatively easy to distinguish from the most contagious Delta variant ever.

2 – Where else has he been seen? Eight more regions of South Africa.

The number of daily cases in the country had almost doubled yesterday to 2,465, it was reported. The official statement did not provide information that the increase could be connected with the new variant. But scientists are skeptical.

In Botswana, four cases were detected. It was reported that all of them had comr from abroad and left the country.

A case from South Africa was detected in Hong Kong, and in Israel it was detected in a passenger returning from Malawi.

3 – Why is the scientific world worried?

All corona viruses, including the one that causes Covid-19, are changing over time. Most changes have either no or very little effect on the characteristics of the virus. But there are some changes that can affect the infectiousness of the virus, the severity of the disease it causes, and the effectiveness of vaccines.  The reason that the new variant in question attracts attention is that it has more than 30 mutations in the spike protein (the structure that allows the virus to attach to cells).

This is almost twice the number of mutations in the Delta variant. The fact that it has a large number of mutations also makes this variant different from the original virus, which served as a sample to develop existing vaccines. In this sense, there are concerns about the potential of the variant to inactivate vaccines.

Although some of the mutations carried by the variant are associated with resistance to antibodies and high infectiousness, some of them are not yet fully understood. Therefore, more data on the new variant is needed to obtain clearer information about whether it will reduce the effectiveness of the vaccine and the rate of its infectiousness.

There is no data yet that the variant causes a different symptom than is known.

4 – How could it have come out?

There is only speculation about this so far. A scientist from the Institute of Genetics of University College London in the UK believes that the variant probably appeared in an untreated HIV patient by undergoing a mutation during a chronic infection. South Africa is the country with the most HIV patients with 8.2 million people.

5 – How did the world react?

Britain has temporarily stopped flights from six African countries.

Singapore has announced that it is restricting entries from South Africa and surrounding countries for 14 days. The European Union has proposed stopping air traffic from the south of Africa. India has tightened its inspections for passengers from countries where the variant was seen.

Israel has placed six African countries – South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho, Botswana, Eswatini and Zimbabwe – on the ‘red list’ in the travel chart.