Cape Town - The National Health Department said it would not be imposing any travel restrictions or internal measures after the detection of a new Omicron subvariant, XBB.1.5, but the country will soon update its vaccination programme.
Health Minister Dr Joe Phaahla provided an update on Covid-19 and the new subvariant, also referred to as Kraken – denoting an enormous mythical sea creature with several tentacles in reference to a higher transmissibility of the sub-variant.
The World Health Organization (WHO) reported an increase of 25% in new Covid-19 infections with 14.5 million new cases and a 12% increase in Covid-19-related fatalities at over 46 000 in December 2022, compared to the previous month.
Japan, South Korea, the US, China and Brazil represented 70% of the new infections reported in December.
In the last week of December, many countries saw a reduction in cases, with the exception of China, which saw an increase of 45% in new cases and 48% in fatalities due to Covid-19, with a number of countries putting in place requirements for travellers coming from China.
On January 6, Stellenbosch University’s Network for Genomics Surveillance in South Africa (NGS-SA) detected the XBB.1.5 sub-variant in a specimen from a patient on December 27 last year.
The variant of concern remains Omicron at 97%, which became dominant in late 2021, with over 100 subvariants or sublineages, Phaahla said.
“We believe that the fact that the dominant variant of concern in China and in the world remains the Omicron, and that the immunity of South Africans from vaccination and natural immunity is still very strong.
“This puts us in a better position and in less risk and that is why we have not seen up to this stage any major changes in our epidemiology in terms of rates of infections, admissions to hospitals, and even the rates of fatalities from the Covid-19 pandemic.”
On advice from the Ministerial Advisory Committees, WHO, and the National Coronavirus Council, there was no need to impose any travel restrictions or reimpose any restrictions to South Africans internally.
The department, however, was advised to increase the rate of testing, sequencing and surveillance.
The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) will be increasing surveillance of wastewater testing for Covid-19, including from aircraft coming from countries with high Covid-19 infections.
The department was also advised to reinvigorate the vaccination programme, with adjustments to the qualifications of booster doses to be made.
On the new variant, NICD specialist Dr Michelle Groome said there was evidence that it may be slightly more transmissible than the ones that were circulating at the moment, this evidence is “relatively weak”.
National Health Insurance Child Health specialist Dr Lesley Bamford said adults 50 years and older were eligible to receive a total of four doses and adults 18-49 years old were eligible to receive three doses.
“It is our intention to offer an additional dose so that will be a fifth dose for people 50 years and older and a fourth dose for people 18-49 years of age.”
This would become available at the end of January.
Health MEC Nomafrench Mbombo encouraged people to remain calm.
Daily Covid-19 numbers in the Western Cape showed a total of 349 active cases reported. Currently a total of 21 people were admitted to hospital, and a total of 3 in ICU. No deaths were reported on Tuesday, with a total of 1 death reported in the last 7 days.
“For now, it is important that people take up their vaccinations and boosters, when eligible. We still have weekly sites in the province and people can find the details at https://coronavirus.westerncape.gov.za/vaccine/latest-vaccination-sites. Vaccination still is the best defence against the Covid-19 virus,” she said.