‘Highly infections’ HIV variant detected in the Netherlands, not South Africa

A Facebook post claims that a virulent variant of HIV was recently discovered in South Africa.

The claim is false; the variant was found predominantly in the Netherlands by Oxford University researchers, who also reassured the public that despite the variant’s increased transmissibility, it is treatable with standard antiretrovirals.

The post published on February 9, 2022, includes a picture showing a man’s forehead spotted with acne, and a link to a blog article .

“A new HIV variant has been discovered in South Africa and if you have any of these symptoms you maybe having it (sic),” the post’s caption reads.

The linked article does not specify any symptoms as suggested in the post.

While it does include extracts of accurate information from credible news outlets, some of the reporting has alarmist undertones.

For example, the article falsely claims that “according to them the new variant of HIV is spreading like wild fire in Europe (sic)”.

The post was published on a Facebook page with more than 760,000 followers and named after local political party leader, Julius Malema.

But the claim about the variant being discovered in South Africa is false.

On February 4, 2022, Oxford researchers announced the discovery of a highly virulent strain of HIV that has been lurking in the Netherlands for decades.

However, because of the effectiveness of modern treatments, the strain is “no cause for alarm”.

As reported bv AFP, their analysis showed that patients infected with the “VB variant” had 3.5 to 5.5 times higher levels of the virus in their blood than those infected with other variants, as well as a more rapidly fading immune system.

But the study also found that after starting treatment, individuals with the VB variant had similar immune system recovery and survival to people with other HIV variants.

“There’s no cause for alarm with this new viral variant,” Oxford epidemiologist Chris Wymant, the lead author on the paper, told AFP.

The variant likely arose in the late 1980s and early 1990s in the Netherlands, according to the researchers, but began to decline around 2010 – meaning it’s unlikely to be prevalent in South Africa, as the Facebook post falsely claims.

Artisanal and Small Scale Mining

Chikomeni Manda an artisanal and small scale mining Consultant at Perekezi ASM Consultants, said it was difficult to monitor operations of the small scale mines and force them to invest in local communities.

Manda said in Mzimba, for example, many Chinese nationals have invested in mines owned by Malawians and were extracting low value gemstones like rose quartz.

He believes that in a small way locals are benefiting from the Chinese investors through employment though they are being paid wages that do not reflect the work they do for the investors.

Natural Resources Justice Network in Malawi chairperson, Kossam Munthali, wondered why Malawi has an influx of Chinese nationals operating in the districts without any proper entry point and state supervision.

“How they find their way into the remote areas extracting our precious stones is a mystery: the chiefs don’t know and even the local councils are in the dark,” he said.

A Malawian lawmaker, Welani Chilenga, who is chairperson of the natural resources and environment parliamentary committee, said the country had relevant statutes to regulate the extractive sector, but these were rendered ineffective by poor implementation.

Chilenga is of the view that the government is not doing enough to enforce the implementation of