The New Covid-19 Strain in South Africa: What We Know - WSJ - 0 views
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A new variant of the coronavirus is driving a powerful second wave of infections in South Africa. The variant has already spread to other countries and raised concerns over how it will respond to Covid-19 vaccines.
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he discovery and spread of the South African variant has coincided with a powerful surge in infections in the country. New daily cases and deaths have already surpassed those seen in the first wave, which peaked in July, and infections are still going up. South African researchers say they also believe that the new variant is more transmissible, since it has quickly crowded out other versions of the virus circulating in the country.
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So far, laboratories in at least 14 countries—including Canada, France, Germany and China--have found the variant in coronavirus tests, although mostly in people who had recently traveled to South Africa. Researchers in the U.K., Botswana and Zambia say they have found cases of local transmission of the variant in their countries.
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Researchers who have studied the E484K mutation say it may make the existing Covid-19 vaccines less effective against the new variant, but is unlikely to be totally resistant to the shots.
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Laboratory experiments have shown that the E484K mutation can make the virus resistant to some important antibodies the body uses to fight off Covid-19.
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“The challenge like here in [South Africa] is in knowing whether reinfection is more likely with these variants,” said Richard Lessells, an infectious-disease specialist at the KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform, “or whether they are just seeing reinfection with these variants because they are the viruses circulating at the moment and immune responses from first episodes have waned.”
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South Africa expects to get its first one million doses of a vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca PLC this month, with the second shipment of 500,000 doses due in February.