Covid-19: UKZN researchers studying new variants
A Professor at the KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform and Bioinformatician at UKZN has unpacked the driving force behind the emergence of new Covid-19 variants.
Professor Tulio de Oliveira was speaking during a UKZN webinar on the different coronavirus strains on Friday.
"At the moment there two hypothesis, the first being that there are variants with large number of mutations because the difference the three main variants that were discovered both in SA and the UK and initially in Japan, but was linked back to Brazil, is that they many mutations than the lineages that were circulated," he said.
"The second emerging hypothesis is that places that had a lot of infections from the first wave may have a lot of individuals that have decreased levels of antibodies and when the new virus comes it is not enough to be completely neutralised."
Clinical virologist at UKZN Dr Richard Lessells warned that a slow vaccine roll-out could mean the emergence of more variants.
"There will be a selective pressure on the virus since some people would be vaccinated and some not so as the virus spreads across the population we will see the selection of more variants that will have the capacity to evade the immune response from the vaccines."
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