South Sudanese people should not be alarmed too much by the detection of new COVID-19 variants in the country, since the vaccine can still prevent the spread of the new strains.
Undersecretary in the Ministry of Health Dr. Mayen Machut Achiek, said even though the government was high alert over the new strains, there are indications that the vaccine can still prevent their spread.
“The new coronavirus variants are causing growing concern but people should not panic, [the] good news is that the Covid vaccine we are using now can protect us from getting the new variants,’’ he said.
Last week, the ministry of health announced a detection of two COVID-19 strains- one of them being B.1.5.2.5 which was detected in the UK.
Mr Achiek explained that the new strains were not any way different SARS-Cov-2 in terms of behaviour and response to the drugs, but they had been named after different countries.
However, Achiek argued without quoting a peer reviewed that these new strains can behave differently when it comes to fighting against the body’s immune system in particular communities.
“It can be detected by the technicians, that will be called the variants of that place or country where it was detected like the change that occurred in India is called Indian Virus; the one that happened in Britain the called it the British or the UK variant.”
He said in Nigeria, when it was first detected it was named the Nigerian variant followed by other countries like Uganda, Kenya.
Dr. Mayen added that, calling the variants by the name of the particular country or place also may not mean that the place has new virus. It is could just be a deviation from some characteristics of the virus.
“Now what is important is this: if these variants or that chain in that community is encouraging more infections [or] infectivity, or the variants cause severe disease in that society, then it becomes a virus of serious concern like the one which is happening in India.’’
“South Sudan has not detected any similar virus like that one of Indian variant. We [are doing research along] with Ugandan Covid-19 central laboratory through WHO and partners supporting us send the samples to check whether we have any other variants,” he revealed.
He disclosed that in the few samples the country sent to Uganda, it was able to detect something similar to Nigerian variant and another one similar to Uganda variant.
“For the case of Uganda, we are almost the same people with similar character, because of the movement between two countries.
“One thing has been added that the vaccination that people are getting also can protect against all the variants, and that is very positive news for everyone in the country,” he added.
However, he said people need to take the vaccines seriously. He added the ministry had launched a publicity campaign urging the citizens to come up and take the vaccine especially those who have some health problems.
A new study of the U.K. and South Africa variants of SARS-CoV-2 predicts that current vaccines and certain monoclonal antibodies may be less effective at neutralising these variants, and that the new variants raise the levels of likelihood of reinfections could be more likely.