Coronavirus disease COVID-19 infection medical illustration. 

By Naadiya Adams

Researchers in South Africa have identified a potential new variant of Covid-19, the variant was detected through genomic monitoring of the virus during the country’s 3^rd wave of infections.

Scientists are currently monitoring the variant and assessing whether it has increased transmissibility and whether or not vaccines will still be effective against it

While the Delta variant is still the most dominant, Dr Richard Lessels says, the variant, which has been dubbed C.1.2 has been detected in a few provinces already but as it stands the frequency of the variant is still low, but what raised concerns among scientists was that the mutation of the variant showed similarities to previous variants like Delta, Alpha and Beta.

“We’re tracking this very closely and we doing a kind of in-depth laboratory study to get a better understanding of it,” said Lessels.

The low frequency described by Lessels translates to about 2% of studied infections showing traces of C.1.2, which amounts to about 1 in 50 cases while the delta variant is still responsible for about 90% of infections in South Africa.

Lessels says that while the genetic codes change slightly with every new variant, what has become very clear is that vaccines are still the best protection against Covid-19 and are still very effective.

“Vaccines still hold up very well in protecting people from getting very sick, from being hospitalised and from dying, there hasn’t been enough mutation or evolution of the virus to get around the vaccine. And looking at this variant, we don’t think there will be anything different here,” explains Lessels.

The new C.1.2 variant has been most prevalent in South Africa, while traces of it have been detected in other countries, scientists believe that it may have originated in SA, which has raised concerns of how it may affect travel of South Africans and the potential of being added to a “red list” once more.

“There was enough of this circulating that it was also being exported out of the country but its not spreading anywhere else in the world, so what we’re picking up is just single isolated cases,” explains Lessels.

Questions have also been raised as to why variants are seemingly emerging out of South Africa, Dr Lessels says they are not yet sure what is causing it but the latest variant shows signs of the parent variant that was seen in the first wave of the pandemic over a year ago, what they suspect is that people who have weakened immune systems and have become infected may be a breeding ground for new variants.