World News

Concern rising over new COVID-19 EG-5 variant

Concern is rising in parts of the world over the new COVID-19 variant EG-5, which has also been called Eris. It has become the dominant variant in the United States, which led to the World Health Organisation classifying it as a variant of interest.

This classification means that Eris has genetic changes that give it an advantage over other variants. However, experts say EG-dash-5 does not pose a substantial threat.

Wits Professor Shabir Madhi says, “The one issue in South Africa is that the amount of testing that’s being done is very limited, especially for mild cases. But even looking at hospitalisation, there hasn’t been much change in the number of individuals being admitted for COVID-19- almost for the past 12 months, which is a very positive thing. This particular sub-lineage of the Omicron variant, which was the parent variant, resulted in multiple sub-lineages, with more than 200 sub-lineages born since it was first identified in South Africa. This indicates that it will be a bit more transmissible than other variants, and maybe what we refer to as antibody evasive.

Source: eNCA

In other news – Inside Ayanda Thabethe’s expensive baby shower

Ayanda Thabethe celebrates the baby shower of her second bundle of joy. It was a white-themed celebration with her guests dressed in white PJs. My baby shower felt like something out of a fairytale.

Ayanda Thabethe

My little snowflake is on the way and we can’t wait to meet our little king,” she captioned video. Ayanda gave fans a glimpse of her fairytale baby shower and followers admitted to the beauty displayed in the event. Read more