Restricted Flights? Because Its Necessary, South Africa

"This new variant of the COVID-19 virus is very worrying. It is the most heavily mutated version of the virus we have seen to date."

"Some of the mutations that are similar to changes we’ve seen in other variants of concern are associated with enhanced transmissibility and with partial resistance to immunity induced by vaccination or natural infection."

Professor Lawrence Young, virologist, Warwick University, Britain

 

"What we do know is there's a significant number of mutations, perhaps double the number of mutations that we have seen in the Delta variant."

"And that would suggest that it may well be more transmissible and the current vaccines that we have may well be less effective." 

British Health Secretary Sajid Javid

Passengers walk past artwork between terminals at IAH George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas. REUTERS/Adrees Latif

The dread likelihood of a more virulent, transmissible, vaccine-avoidance mutation of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 emerging at some point in the trajectory of variants mutating from variants was always thought by scientists to be a matter of time, although they also hoped that opportunities for such a mutation to develop might be mitigated by the speed with which pharmaceutical companies developed effective, safe vaccines against COVID. It looks now that among the known 'variants of concern', one is now swiftly spreading that may resemble the dreaded apparition.

A newly identified variant out of South Africa is being watched with rising concern within the global medical community with the fearful trepidation that its properties may result in seeing highly successful vaccines far less effective when countering the new strain. The immediate course of action has been to shut the door of opportunity to the virus in the hope that travel restriction imposed on seven African countries where the new variant has been identified, would stem its course.

 

People queue to get vaccinated against COVID-19 at a shopping mall in Johannesburg on Friday. South African scientists doing genomic sequencing said on Tuesday they detected a new coronavirus variant. (Denis Farrell/The Associated Press)

 

Britain has taken immediate steps to temporarily ban flights from South Africa and six other African countries and mandating that returning British travellers from these very destinations go into immediate and strict quarantine. According to the U.K. Health Security Agency, the variant, labelled B.l.l.529 on an interim basis, boasts a spike protein far different to the original coronavirus that the composition of the COVID-19 vaccines are based on.

Leading to the concern that its mutations are likely to be able to evade the immune response generated through prior infection as well as through inoculation with current vaccines. Investigators are awaiting the opportunity to collect additional data, but as a precautionary move reflecting lab studies required to assess the likelihood of greatly reduced vaccine efficacy of the mutations, the travel restrictions were viewed by scientists as a necessary step.

The British government was advised to react without delay, pre-emptively, should the concerns of the variant impact be borne out, regardless of the fact that it could take a matter of weeks-long investigations for all the information required to shine a light of understanding on the new variant's characteristics to be collected and adequately assessed. 

 

Scientists in South Africa announced their detection of the new COVID-19 variant in limited numbers and were involved in efforts to better comprehend its potential implications. The World Health Organization has praised the South African scientists for their quick detection and timely warning to the international community. 

Diagnostic laboratories' early studies of the variant suggest it has increased its presence rapidly in the most populated province of Gauteng, and the expectation is that it may be present in the country's other eight provinces, according to the announcement by the South African scientists. Up to a day previous there was confirmation of the presence of 100 specimens identified as B.l.l.529, in South Africa.

 

Europe and the U.K. imposing travel restrictions against southern Africans because of the emergence of a new coronavirus variant is 'unjustified,' says South African Health Minister Dr. Joe Phaahla. (Jerome Delay/The Associated Press

 

To the present, the variant has also been found in Botswana and Hong Kong; the Hong Kong case a traveller from South Africa. Scientists in South Africa now speculate that up to 90 percent of new cases in Gauteng could be B.l.l.529. "Although the data are limited, our experts are working overtime with all the established surveillance systems to understand the new variant and what the potential implications could be", explained a statement from South Africa's National Institute for Communicable Diseases.

Following Britain's decision to close to flights from the seven African countries, the European Union followed suit, followed closely by the United States and Canada. Israel, which identified a case of the new variant in an Israeli arrival returning from a trip to the African continent, has done likewise. As concern over the presence of the new, threatening variant, India, Japan, Turkey, Switzerland the United Arab Emirates have also taken cautionary measures to impose tougher travel curbs.

Dr. Isaac Bogoch says it's important to understand the new coronavirus variant, and equally important to get people around the world vaccinated. Credit: AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazh