South Africa sees rise in Covid reinfections from Omicron, mild symptoms – scientist

2nd December 2021

By: Reuters

  

Font size: - +

South Africa is seeing an increase in Covid-19 reinfections due to the Omicron variant but symptoms for reinfected patients and those infected after vaccination appear to be mild, a scientist studying the outbreak of the new strain said.

The new variant, which has caused global fears of a surge in infections, was first detected in southern Africa and is fast overtaking Delta to become the dominant variant in South Africa, where case numbers are rising dramatically.

"Previous infection used to protect against Delta but now with Omicron that doesn't seem to be the case," said Anne von Gottberg, microbiologist at South Africa's National Institute for Communicable Diseases.

She told an online news conference hosted by the World Health Organization (WHO) that she and her colleagues believed reinfections with Omicron and breakthrough infections in vaccinated patients would feature less severe symptoms.

Von Gottberg said the travel bans nL4N2SN0H0 imposed by many countries on passengers from South Africa were having a negative impact on the logistics of scientific research into Omicron.

"There are fewer flights to choose from to bring in reagents, to bring in equipment, in addition to send out specimens and isolates for people to be able to then work with Omicron," she said.

Isolates are cultures of micro-organisms isolated for study.

African leaders have complained about the travel restrictions, saying their countries were being penalised for their transparency in reporting data on the new variant.

More than 50% of African nations can now do the genomic sequencing to identify the variant, the WHO said, and those that cannot are partnered with nations that can.

WHO officials told the same event Covid-19 vaccination was improving in Africa, with five countries including South Africa now having vaccinated more than 40% of their populations, although coverage remained low elsewhere.

At a separate online news conference, the head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control, Dr John Nkengasong, said supplies of vaccines to the continent had improved.

"Vaccines are beginning to flow to the continent in a very predictable and steady manner," he said, adding that the challenge now was to ensure those supplies were actually used, in a context where vaccine hesitancy remains high.

"The uptake is not as we would have loved to see," he said.

Some African countries had delayed the deliveries of vaccines, including those of doses provided under the African Union's African Vaccine Acquisition Task Team, he said.

Edited by Reuters

Comments

The content you are trying to access is only available to subscribers.

If you are already a subscriber, you can Login Here.

If you are not a subscriber, you can subscribe now, by selecting one of the below options.

For more information or assistance, please contact us at subscriptions@creamermedia.co.za.

Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):

Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format

Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):

All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.

Already a subscriber?

Forgotten your password?

MAGAZINE & ONLINE

SUBSCRIBE

RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA

SUBSCRIBE

CORPORATE PACKAGES

CLICK FOR A QUOTATION