Women walk on a dirt road while wearing a handkerchief to cover their nose, as the new coronaviruses variant Omicron spreads, in Qumanco village in the eastern Cape province of South Africa, November 30, 2021. REUTERS Siphiwe Sibeko
NAIROBI, Dec 2, Reuters -- South Africa is seeing an increase in COVID 19 reinfections due to the Omicron variant, but symptoms for re-infected patients and those infected after vaccination appear to be mild, a scientist studying the outbreak of the new strain said.
The new variant, which has caused global fears of an increase in infections, was first detected in southern Africa and is fast overtaking Delta to become the dominant variant in South Africa, where case numbers are rising dramatically. Anne von Gottberg, a microbiologist at South Africa's National Institute for Communicable Diseases said that the previous infection used to protect against Delta but now with Omicron doesn't seem to be the case.
She told the World Health Organization WHO that she and her colleagues believed that reinfections with Omicron and breakthrough infections in vaccinated patients would feature less severe symptoms.
The travel bans on passengers from South Africa are having a negative impact on the logistics of scientific research into Omicron, according to Von Gottberg.
There are fewer flights to bring in equipment, reagents, in addition to sending out specimens and isolates for people to work with Omicron, she said.
Isolates are cultures of microorganisms isolated for study.
African leaders have complained about the travel restrictions, saying their countries were being penalised for their transparency in reporting data on the new variant.
More than 50% of African nations can now do genomic testing to identify the variant, and those that can't be partnered with nations that can, the WHO said.
WHO officials said that COVID-19 vaccination in Africa was improving, with five countries including South Africa now having vaccinated more than 40% of their populations, although coverage remained low elsewhere.
The head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control, Dr John Nkengasong, said at a separate online news conference that supplies of vaccine to the continent had improved.
He said that the challenge was to make sure that supplies were actually used, because vaccine hesitancy remains high, and that vaccine supplies are beginning to flow to the continent in a predictable and steady manner.
He said that the uptake was not as we would have liked to see.
Some African countries had delayed the delivery of vaccines, including those provided by the African Union's African Vaccine Acquisition Task Team.