On 24 December, the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that a new variant of the novel coronavirus appeared in Nigeria, but further investigation was needed.
According to the Associated Press on the 24th, John Nkengasong, head of the African CDC, told reporters on the same day that another new variant of the novel coronavirus seems to have appeared in Nigeria.
“This is a different variant from that found in the United Kingdom and South Africa.”
“Please give us some time… It’s still early on [spread].” Nkengason said that the African Research Center for Genome Excellence for Infectious Diseases will analyze more samples.
After the British government reported the emergence of a new strain of COVID-19 on December 14, confirmed cases related to the mutant strain have been found in many countries.
On December 21, WHO held a routine press conference on COVID-19.
Maria van Kohoff, technical director of WHO’s health emergency project, said that South Africa has also found another variant of the novel coronavirus, which is different from the variant that appeared in the United Kingdom.
Although it appeared at the same time, it seemed to be related to each other, but it was an unrelated variant. South Africa has informed WHO of the preliminary results of some studies.
Nkengason said that there are nearly 1 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 in South Africa, although the variant spreads rapidly and the virus load is high, and it is not clear whether it will lead to more serious diseases.
