The holidays have come to an end and along comes a new sub-variant of Covid-19 to burst your bubble.
South Africans were introduced to yet another offspring of the coronavirus dubbed ‘The Kraken’.
Tulio de Oliveira, head of a gene sequencing institute at Stellenbosch University, on Friday tweeted that South Africa detected the XBB.1.5 variant while doing gene sequencing testing from a December 27 sample.
The testing was carried out by university researchers.
Oliviera later tweeted that he does not expect a big wave of infections with hospitalisation in SA due to high population immunity and previous waves of Omicron lineages.
“XBB.1.5 is still Omicron & anyone worried should get a booster,” he tweeted.
Senior epidemiologist at the World Health Organisation (WHO), Maria van Kerkhov, last week referred to the XBB.1.5 strain of the virus as “the most transmissible Omicron sub-variant”, detected thus far.
She explained that the virus could replicate easily and spread rapidly because of the mutations it contains.
WHO, however, does not have any data on severity yet, or a clinical picture on its impact.
It said that it saw no indication that its severity had changed but that increased transmissibility is always a concern.
Western Cape Health and Wellness MEC Nomafrench Mbombo assured the public that it has ongoing surveillance and monitoring of Covid cases, hospitalisations, and deaths from a number of Covid-19 variants.
Mbombo urged the public to get vaccinated and receive their booster shots if they qualify.
“Vaccination remains our best defence against infection,“ she said.