south africa says a new strain of the
coronavirus is
driving a second wave of infections in
the country
experts say the new strain appears to be
more infectious than the
original virus and that cases are
spreading faster
it is still unclear if it is also more
deadly
scientists say the new variant is
different from the one currently causing
concern
in britain the number of daily cases has
doubled in south africa
over the last two weeks
more on this i'm joined by virologist
professor barry schube he's
the founding president of the african
virology association and is chairing
south africa's ministerial
advisory committee on coronavirus uh
vaccine development welcome to
dw news africa prof we understand that
this new variant of covert 19 in south
africa
that it seems to be spreading faster
than the current one how worried are you
about it
yeah it is certainly a sense of concern
this variant is it's called the n501
why ours is very in version two v2
the version one actually was in london
in the uk
it's also a 501 it was a little bit
different we've got different mutations
but like one in england we are very
concerned because it is spreading very
rapidly
in fact it is a fast displacing the
original covet virus
and this is really going to become the
dominant virus so in many parts of the
country particularly in the south and
the
eastern cape the western cape and
kwazulu and charles provinces
this has really become the major
dominant strain and as i say is
responsible really for
a steep increase in cases in our second
wave professor many people in south
africa have traveled and will be
gathering groups
uh over the christmas holiday how
concerned are you about that in light of
what you've just said
yeah this is the problem we actually
were anticipating a second wave
later in the probably in january
february has come a lot earlier
for two reasons one of them is that we
had a big super spreading event
uh in what's called the rage festival
this is when the students
who finish their high school they have
get togethers and
many thousands of these students get
together and that's
probably initiated the epidemic and now
this new strain has actually amplified
it
and this has really become now the
demonstration titan restrictions
yeah well they have they have they are
increasing they
have increased some restrictions but you
know it's a balancing act they've got to
balance
what the uh what people need for their
livelihood
as you against controlling the disease
so it's the old lies versus livelihood
uh equation
so they have increased some restrictions
uh but balancing it against what to keep
the economy going
and what does the discovery of this new
variant of the virus mean for for
vaccine development professor
wells fortunately so far it does not
appear
that this is what you call an escape
mutation in other words
that the either people that are immune
from previous infection
or if they have the vaccine that they're
going not to be protected
it doesn't seem to affect that that part
of it the vaccine does appear to be
effective
so far there are studies which are
ongoing but hopefully it will
demonstrate that it is not affected by
the
uh by any changes in antigenicity in
other words the
vaccine identity all right that's
professor barry shubh speaking to us in
south africa thank you
thanks christine
you