Jubilee Post News & Views
Jubilee News Desk
New variant of covid B.1.1529 has compelled countries to impose travel restrictions and increase screening and testing.
More countries are tightening their travel restrictions. This after South Africa, Botswana and Hong Kong reported the new variant in the past one week. Collectively they have reported 10 cases till now.
The UK and Singapore are rushing in stricter quarantine measures or banning flights from South Africa and neighbouring countries. The EU is proposing to ban flights from the region across the whole bloc. India too has issued advisory to all its states. Scientists still have much to learn about the variant, but say they are very worried about it as there can be multiple mutations in this variant.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has said it will take a few weeks to understand the impact of the new variant, as scientists work to determine how transmissible it is.
The variant is very different to the others that have emerged so far. Scientists have said it is the most heavily mutated version yet, which means vaccines, which were designed using the original strain from Wuhan, may not be as effective.
In an advisory to all states India has asked the health staff to focus upon travellers coming from or transiting through these ‘at risk’ countries. Such travellers should be understood as those coming from ‘at risk’ countries and their rigorous screening be done as per guidelines.
The new variant is yet to be given a name, like Delta or Beta, and right now is known as B.1.1.529. The WHO is yet to name it possibly in Greek, and announce whether it is a variant of concern or just a variant of interest.
WHO says so far fewer than 100 sample sequences have been reported. Cases have mainly been confirmed in South Africa, but have also been detected in Hong Kong, Israel, Botswana and Belgium.
Countries are likely to introduce more measures for those coming to them from these three countries or travelling on a route that goes through these countries. The announcement shall come in next few days.
