On the evening of Saturday 8 May, Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize announced South Africa had four confirmed cases of the B.1.617.2 variant, first identified in India, where cases of Covid-19 have reached record daily highs.
“The B.1.617.2 variant is currently highlighted as a variant of interest by the World Health Organisation and is one of multiple variants circulating in India,” read an instituteAll the cases had been isolated according to Covid-19 case management practices and contact tracing has been performed, said the NICD.describes a “variant of concern” as a variant that has been identified as causing “community transmission, multiple Covid-19 cases/clusters, or has been detected in multiple countries”.
South Africa currently has 1,594,817 confirmed cases of Covid-19, with 26,005 confirmed active cases. Mkhize’s statement confirmed South Africa also had 11 cases of the B.1.1.7 variant, which was first discovered in the UK. Two cases were confirmed in Gauteng, one in KwaZulu-Natal and eight in Western Cape. Mkhize said the variant had been detected in community samples — “this therefore suggests that community transmission of B.1.1.7 has already set in”.
This is not good at all