New COVID-19 variant detected in South Africa can evade vaccine protection: Study

A new COVID-19 variant, C.1.2, has been detected in South Africa. According to a study, the C.1.2 variant could be more transmissible and would have the ability to evade the protection provided by the COVID-19 vaccines. The researchers have assigned C.1.2 to PANGO lineage. Scientists from National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) and the KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform (KRISP) in South Africa have informed that the potential variant of interest, C.1.2, was first detected in May, 2021.

New COVID-19 variant in South Africa

The study, which is yet to be peer reviewed and was published in the pre-print MedRxiv on August 24. According to the study, the C.1.2 variant has been detected throughout the third wave of infections in South Africa from May 2021 onwards. It has since been detected across the majority of the provinces in South Africa and in seven other countries like Africa, Europe, Asia and Oceania.  C.1.2 contains many mutations that have been identified in all four Variants of Concerns that include Alpha, Beta, Delta and Gamma. The C.1.2 also comprises of Variants of Interest that include Kappa, Eta and Lambda and additional mutations. 

The C.1.2 variant was first detected in the Mpumalanga and Gauteng provinces in South Africa, in May 2021. Since then, the variant has been detected in South African provinces including the Eastern Cape and Western Cape, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Mauritius, New Zealand, Portugal and Switzerland. According to PTI, nearly 52 per cent of the mutations in the spike region of the C.1.2 sequences have been seen in the variants of concerns and Variants of Interest. In the abstract, the researchers have explained that C.1.2 is "associated with increased transmissibility and reduced neutralisation sensitivity".  According to the study, C.1.2 variant has 41.8 mutations per year which are approximately 1.7-fold faster than the current global rate. It is estimated that the variant is 1.8-fold faster than the initial estimate of SARS-CoV-2 evolution. 

According to South African Health Department, as on August 29, the country reported 7,740 new COVID-19 cases which brought the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases to 2,764,931. 134 new COVID-19 related deaths have been reported in South Africa bringing the total fatalities to 81,595.

(IMAGE: Pixabay, Inputs from PTI)