Faizel Patel – 29/06/2021
Senior health reporter at the Bhekisa Centre for Health Journalism Aisha Abdool Karim says while the rising number of COVID-19 infections in Gauteng is worrying the new cause for concern is the slow increases of cases in other provinces in the country.
Karim was speaking to Radio Islam on Monday following President Cyril Ramaphosa’s address to the nation where he announced the country will move to an adjusted lockdown level four to curb the spread of the Delta variant which caused an epidemic in India.
The virus has now been found in five provinces including Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, The Eastern and Western Cape and the Free State.
Karim says the Delta variant spread very quickly and is highly transmissible.
“The move to level four is and the decision to impose much harsher restrictions is honestly a good move in order to restrict how much virus can spread. We already know that it can spread very easily especially if people are interacting with each other and it takes a much shorter amount of time for it to spread from person to person.”
Karim says there is a limited amount information about how the Delta variant behaves.
“As President Ramaphosa mentioned, there is some evidence that points towards the fact that children are at higher risk of being infected with this variant as opposed to other versions of the virus. But there is nothing conclusive yet to say how big that increase risk is or what this variant means for children.”
Karim says the current COVID-19 vaccines may be effective against the Delta variant.
“It seems that the efficacy of the vaccines is still sufficient and you are offered enough protection. What that means for South Africa is the Pfizer vaccine should still be able to offer enough protection to people who have received that vaccine. There isn’t enough information yet on the Johnson and Johnson which is the other one that we are using in the country.”
Abdool says everybody should be cautious about the Delta variant because not much is known about this variant, adding that even if people were infected with the Beta variant, they could be re-infected with the Delta variant.
Listen to the interview with Aisha Abdool Karim
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