Delta pushing KZN to the edge of a third wave
THERE has been a 45% spike in Covid19 infections in KZN this week, and five districts have crossed the threshold.
Amajuba, Uthukela, Umzinyathi, Umgungundlovu and Zululand were in the third wave.
Professor Tulio de Oliveira, director of the KZN Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform (Krisp), said the Delta variant was rapidly becoming the dominant Covid-19 variant globally and across the country.
“A fast increase of Delta equates to a fast increase of deaths in low vaccine coverage countries. The epidemic is still expanding in the country, now with other provinces like Limpopo, KZN, Mpumalanga and the Western Cape showing a fast increase of cases driven by Delta,” he said.
Other variants of concern (VOC) were rare, like the Delta plus variant, which was present in the Eastern Cape and Gauteng, but there were no cases of the Lambda first detected in Peru in the country.
Infectious diseases specialist Richard Lessells, a Krisp group leader, and Houriiyah Tegally, a researcher and Krisp team member, said new evidence confirmed that Delta was neutralised by vaccines.
Infectious diseases epidemiologist Professor Salim Abdool Karim said there were millions of Covid-19 variants, but only four were variants of concern.
“Alpha, which was first identified in the UK, Beta from SA, Gamma that was first documented in Brazil, and Delta, which was found in India. Variants of concern spread faster, can be more severe and in some cases evade immunity,” he said.
Abdool Karim said Delta was more transmissible than other variants, and as a result, it had almost wiped out the
Beta variant that was dominant during the second wave.
“Delta is our current priority, the other variants not so much. We don’t know how Lambda behaves in our country as we don’t have any cases.
The World Health Organization has two other categories, variants of interest and general variants.
Abdool Karim said there was a checklist of six questions that required answering when dealing with new variants.
“Does it spread faster, does it affect diagnostic testing, does it cause more severe illness, do standard treatments still work, does previous infection provide protection and do vaccines still offer protection? So far, all of these questions are answerable,” he said.
He said partial protection was provided by previous infections, vaccines still worked, they do not affect diagnostics, and for variants of concern, it was established that they spread faster and were more severe depending on the utilised parameters.
Acting Health Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi-ngubane said they would extend the reach of the national vaccination roll-out.
“In addition to those included in the vaccination roll-out, registration will open on July 15 for citizens between the ages of 35 and 49 to receive a jab starting on August 1.”
The vaccination rollout consists of the Pfizer-biontech and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, but the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority has also approved the Sinovac and Astrazeneca vaccines.
The Sinopharm and Sputnik V vaccines were currently under review for approval.