Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Health and Child Care has confirmed the existence of the variant of COVID-19 first identified in India. Known as B.1.617, the variant was spotted after tests from samples collected from a localised outbreak in Kwekwe.
Is it more contagious?
According to Dr Maria van Kerkhove, WHO’s technical lead on COVID-19, early indications are that it spreads faster, but more information is needed.
“Even though there is increased transmissibility demonstrated by some preliminary studies, we need much more information about this virus variant and this lineage and all of the sub-lineages,” she said on May 10.
Scientists are being cautious because they say other factors may have driven the recent spread of COVID-19 in India. These include mass gatherings at the start of the year.
Is it more deadly?
As of now, there’s no evidence that B.1.617 causes more severe illness than other variants we already have in Zimbabwe.
“There is currently insufficient evidence to indicate that any of the variants recently detected in India cause more severe disease,” Public Health England said on May 7. The variant has also spread in the UK.
Do vaccines work against the variant?
Experts say more research is needed. But the good news is that early tests show that available vaccines are effective against the variant.
In the UK, where there are advanced facilities to check variants, the UK’s health secretary Matt Hancock said experts had “a degree of confidence” that vaccines work against the variant.
Researchers at Oxford found that the variant “will be susceptible to the vaccine in the way that others are”. In simpler terms, vaccines offer the same protection against this variant as they do against other types.
According to the WHO, there is no evidence yet that vaccines don’t work against the variant: “We don’t have anything to suggest that our diagnostics, our therapeutics and our vaccines don’t work.”
Vaccines used in Zimbabwe, such as Sinopharm and Sinovac, have been proven to work against other variants, including those detected in the UK, Brazil and South Africa.
In India itself, the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, one of the labs analysing virus samples, found that Covaxin is effective against the variant in preventing serious illness. Covaxin is also authorised for use in Zimbabwe.
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