Prof Salim Abdool Karim clears the air over Covid-19 SA variant
- Prof Salim Abdool Karim explained to CNN's Alisyn Camerota that people should stop calling the new strain of Covid-19 the SA variant
- He urged people not to use a geographical reference and to rather call the new strain by its real name Covid-19 variant 501Y.V2
- Karim also explained that the virus was discovered in South Africa but it may not have emanated from there
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Prof Salim Abdool Karim has gone viral in a non-Covid-19 way. He explained that the SA variant of Covid-19 should not be called that.
Source: Facebook
He said that the mutated strain of the Covid-19 virus 501Y.V2 might not have emanted from South Africa and that it was just discovered in the country.
He pleaded with the world to call it by its real name Covid-19 variant 501Y.V2 during an interview on CNN.
The new variant was first discovered in the Eastern Cape but has since spread to at least 30 other countries around the world.
Earlier, Briefly.co.za reported that the South African strain of Covid-19 has also been found in the United States. The virus has killed over 400 000 people in America, the highest death toll in the world.
According to a report by The Guardian the Covid-19 variant that was initially found in South Africa has been identified for the first time in the US. These cases were found in South Carolina. However, these cases do not seem to be connected to each other.
Other variants that were originally found in Brazil and the United Kingdom have also been reported in the US.
In other news, at least 1,000 people have been confirmed to have contracted a new type of coronavirus in the UK.
The Health Secretary Matt Hancock told MPs in the House of Commons that by Monday, December 14, 60 local authority areas had reported cases of the new variant.
"We've currently identified over 1,000 cases with this variant predominantly in the South of England although cases have been identified in nearly 60 different areas," Matt told BBC News.
Scientists attributed the recent exponential rise in coronavirus infections to the new type which they said was fast-moving compared to the known variant.
The last couple of days, there had been high infection rate in certain localities such as London, Essex and Hertfordshire.
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Source: Briefly News
