South Africa’s third COVID wave could be the worst yet

Accounting for almost 40 percent of all coronavirus deaths in Africa, the country is struggling to cope with growing coronavirus cases driven by the Delta variant. Cape Town, South Africa From his 10bed private clinic in western Johannesburg, Bayanda Gumende is more used to treating renal diseases than COVID-19. But with the city’s hospitals full, patients lingering in casualty wards for days and ambulances stuck waiting in car parks, that is beginning to change.

The 27-year-old chief nephrology technologist says he has been swamped with calls from patients desperate for oxygen and who cannot find it elsewhere. But with supply being limited, he is forced to prioritise. “It has taken a toll on me. It is very emotional to watch people taking their last breath. Some people are gasping for air. There is literally nothing you can do about it. ou cannot save everybody,” he says. South Africa accounts for close to 40 percent of all COVID-19 deaths on the continent, with 60,038 officially recorded fatalities so far. It is currently in the midst of a third wave, driven by the rapid spread of the Delta variant, first detected in India, which is fast becoming the dominant strain. Professor Salim Abdool Karim, a worldleading epidemiologist and former co-chair of South Africa’s Ministerial Advisory Committee on COVID-19, believes that a mutation related to furin an enzyme that “cleaves” the spike protein makes this variant particularly dangerous.......