Covid-19 cases in South Africa are “growing rapidly” at what appears to be “the fastest pace we’ve seen since the start of the pandemic,” he told CNN Michelle Groome, head of the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD), the country’s public health agency, said Wednesday (1st).
Weeks after Ômicron was first detected, the variant is already dominant in some provinces, according to health officials.
In Gauteng province – which includes the large city of Johannesburg – the Ômicron variant accounted for 74% of gene sequencing, the South Africa Genomic Surveillance Network said on Wednesday.
The province had the biggest increase in Covid-19 infections in the past month, and studies are underway to determine the prevalence of Ômicron in other districts.
Cases in South Africa appear to be on the rise, with around 8,600 daily cases reported on Tuesday. Last week, the plateau was around 1,300 cases, according to the latest NICD data.
Groome said the rapid increase in cases is “worrying,” adding that tests carried out on water from the sewer system alerted authorities relatively early on infections in the district that includes the city of Pretoria.
“Two weeks ago, we were seeing case numbers and positive test rates that were the lowest since the beginning of the pandemic,” said Groome.
She added that those numbers have “climbed rapidly to date,” where scientists are looking at “more than 15%” of samples as positive for Covid-19.
For now, it is unclear whether the increase in infections was “due to increased transmissibility of the Ômicron variant or due to immune escape,” said Groome.
She added that the cases were mostly among younger people, which could be due to the increase in social gatherings after school, as well as lower vaccination rates in this age group.
So far, doctors have seen “mostly mild cases,” said Groome, attributing this to a younger demographic representation.
As cases move into the older population, doctors will have a better idea “whether we’re seeing reciprocal increases in hospitalizations and deaths associated with this, or whether this is really a milder disease,” said Groome.
Reference: CNN Brasil
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