Deputy President David Mabuza has assured South Africans that health authorities were monitoring the recently discovered coronavirus variant in South Africa.
The C.1.2 variant was first detected in May, but officials, including the World Health Organization (WHO), have allayed fears that it is spreading. Delta remains the dominant COVID-19 variant in South Africa and around the world.
During his inspection of the vaccination rollout in Mogale City on Thursday, Deputy President David Mabuza said that the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) was continuing to monitor the frequency of the C.1.2 variant and its behavioural patterns.
So far, the virus has not fulfilled the World Health Organization’s criteria to qualify as a “variant of concern”.
“There’s nothing to worry about. The new variant is under control, if we feel that this new variant is now a problem, the Minister of Health will announce how best to deal with it, but for now we’re tracking it,” said the deputy president.
Mabuza said that he would be visiting other provinces to ensure that almost 40 million people are vaccinated by the end of December, the government’s target.
“We want to almost reach the herd immunity by December, and then we think by that time, we can get out of this problem,” he said.
So far, the country has vaccinated more than 12 million residents, half of them fully.
-EWN
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