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Saturday Star queries whether SA could experience its most devastating wave of Covid-19 cases in the upcoming months. While scientists warned last week that a more vicious strain of Covid could possibly be on its way, health experts have called for calm.
This followed a report by researchers at the Africa Institute for Health Research in Durban, in which they warned that the coronavirus was still able to mutate, despite the current period of calm, and might produce a more vicious version in the future. Scientists issued this warning after they studied the case of a person with Aids who was infected with the “Omicron” corona mutation, which he was unable to get rid of it for six months due to his weak immune system. The study noted that when the virus mutant remains in the patient’s body, for many months, it finds ample time for it to multiply, and then, the possibility of it secreting a new, more fierce mutant increases as a result of the modifications and changes. However, Professor of Vaccinology at Wits University, Shabir Madhi, said there was no reason to believe that the next variant would or would not be more virulent. Madhi said that while sporadic outbreaks of Covid were possible, they were unlikely to translate into large spikes of severe disease or death. “For all intent, the pandemic is very much over, with the extensive infection-induced immunity resulting in an infection fatality rate no higher than would occur after seasonal influenza infection. This has now been the case for the past nine months,” Madhi pointed lut.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Sameer Naik, Karishma Dipa & Norman Cloete at Saturday Star
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