South African health authorities have detected the first cases of infection in the country with a variant of the new coronavirus initially identified in India, the South African health minister announced Monday.
Zweli Mkhize said “four cases” of variant B.1.617.2 have been detected in two provinces – two in Gauteng and two in KwaZulu-Natal, in people coming from India.
The South African governor said that another variant of the new coronavirus, B.117, first detected in the UK, has also been identified in the country with 11 confirmed cases.
We reiterate that there is no reason to panic as the public health response measures – testing, contact tracing, isolation and quarantine – have not changed,” the South African Health Minister stressed.
South Africa’s National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) said that all identified cases are isolated under the country’s existing covid-19 containment rules.
South Africa, with 10,887,709 covid-19 tests carried out, has a cumulative number of 1,596,595 cases of infection with the new coronavirus and 54,735 deaths associated with covid-19 disease, according to South African health officials.
In the past twenty-four hours, the country has recorded 1,778 new cases of infection, the government announced, noting that the cumulative number of recovered patients totals 1,516,256 people, representing a 95% recovery rate.
The number of health workers vaccinated so far in the country totals 383,480, the South African Ministry of Health said.
