Belgian Virologist Warns of COVID-19 Infection Spike ahead of New School Year

Stephen  Van Gucht, a Belgian virologist, warned that authorities all over the world must be more cautious ahead of the new school year, revealing that the last few weeks witnessed a significant increase in infection with the Coronavirus ) .

Gucht's statements were quoted by “Brussels Times”, a Belgian daily newspaper,  as saying that caution is needed as the pace of infection went higher but the rate of sweeping of the disease may slow or stable soon.

Gucht made clear that most of the new infections were registered among youths and children, indicating that about 20% of the newly reported infections were in the younger categories.

On the other hand, a team of South African scientists said that they have identified a new type of Coronavirus which they named  "SARS Cove 2." They stressed that the new variant contains a number of worrisome mutations.

"The C1.2 variant was first identified last May in South Africa's Mpumalanga and Gauteng provinces, where Johannesburg and the national capital of South Africa Pretoria are located," the scientists said in a research paper.

The new Coronavirus variant has since been found in seven other countries in Africa, the Pacific, East Asia (Oceania), Asia, and Europe, Bloomberg reported.

The scientists said that mutations in the virus are "associated with greater transmissibility" and an increased ability to evade antibodies.

The scientists added that "it is important to highlight this given the magnitude of the mutations involved.

It is worth noting that changes in the virus led to successive waves of the pandemic, and now the "Delta" variant, discovered for the first time in India, is causing high rates of infection worldwide.

Mutations of the Coronavirus are first classified as variants of interest by the World Health Organization (WHO), and once identified as more severe or transmissible, they are described as variants of concern.

C1.2 is an evolution from C1, the variant that dominated infection in the first wave of the virus in South Africa in mid-2020.

The research has been published by South African groups, including Crisp and the National Institute of Infectious Diseases.