By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The first known discovery of the coronavirus variant initially identified in the UK has been detected in South Africa.
The announcement of the first local case with the B.1.1.7 variant was made during a WHO Africa press briefing earlier on Thursday.
“We have just reported the first imported case of B.1.1.7, which is the variant of concern in the UK,” said Kwazulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform (KRISP) director, Professor Tulio de Oliveira.
The Network for Genomic Surveillance in South Africa (NGS-SA) would like to report the first genome of B.1.1.7 (501Y.V1) in South Africa. We are finalizing the assembly of the genome and will deposit soon at GISAID. This was produced by the Stellenbosch University and NHLS.
— Tulio de Oliveira (@Tuliodna) January 28, 2021
De Oliveira and his team at KRISP detected the second variant of the coronavirus in December.
Another fantastic resource to understand B.1.1.7 (501Y.V1) variant found for the first time in South Africa today is the Nextstrain S.N501 website. This interactive site allow one to see the global spread of the variants.https://t.co/OEY9KVEr69@firefoxx66 @richardneher @trvrb
— Tulio de Oliveira (@Tuliodna) January 28, 2021
“We are still going to have introduction of new lineages and in the case that they come to spread very fast, then we will communicate that it could be a variant of concern.”
This is a developing story.