The discovery could add to new alarm in the pandemic after
similar variants were announced in Britain and South Africa, leading to the
swift return of international travel restrictions and other measures just as
the world enters a major holiday season.
“It’s a separate lineage from 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 —
will be analyzing more samples.
“Give us some time … it’s still very early,” he said.
The alert about the apparent new variant was based on two or
three genetic sequences, he said, but that and South Africa’s alert late last
week were enough to prompt an emergency meeting of the Africa CDC this week.
The variant was found in two patient samples collected on
Aug. 3 and on Oct. 9 in Nigeria’s Osun state, according to a working research
paper seen by The Associated Press.
Unlike the variant seen in the UK, “we haven’t observed such
rapid rise of the lineage in Nigeria and do not have evidence to indicate that
the P681H variant is contributing to increased transmission of the virus in
Nigeria. However, the relative difference in scale of genomic surveillance in
Nigeria vs the U.K. may imply a reduced power to detect such changes,” the
paper says.
The news comes as infections surge again in parts of the
African continent.
The new variant in South Africa is now the predominant one
there, Nkengasong said, as confirmed infections in the country approach 1
million. While the variant transmits quickly and viral loads are higher, it is
not yet clear whether it leads to a more severe disease, he said.
“We believe this mutation will not have an effect” on the
deployment of COVID-19 vaccines to the continent, he said of the South Africa
variant.
South Africa’s health minister late Wednesday announced an
“alarming rate of spread” in that country, with more than 14,000 new cases
confirmed in the past day, including more than 400 deaths. It was the largest
single-day increase in cases.
The country has more than 950,000 infections and COVID-19 is
“unrelenting,” Health Minister Zwelini Mkhize said.
The African continent now has more than 2.5 million
confirmed cases, or 3.3% of global cases. Infections across the continent have
risen 10.9% over the past four weeks, Nkengasong said, including a 52% increase
in Nigeria and 40% increase in South Africa.
For the first time since confirming sub-Saharan Africa’s
first virus case in February, Nigeria is in the spotlight during this pandemic
as infections surge.
“Over recent weeks, we’ve had a huge increase in number of
samples to (Nigeria CDC) reference lab,” the CDC director-general Chikwe
Ihekweazu tweeted on Thursday. “This has led to an unusual delay with testing,
but we’re working around the clock,” with many colleagues cutting short their
holidays and returning to work.
Nigeria now has more than 80,000 confirmed coronavirus
cases.
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