A new variant of the COVID-19 from South Africa was detected for the first time in the United States in two South Carolina patients, health officials said on Thursday.
The new variant virus poses yet another public health challenge in US, as it’s already losing more than 3,000 people to COVID-19 every day.
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Public health officials affirmed that there are more infections which have not been identified yet.
The officials are also concerned that this version might spread more easily and that vaccines could be less effective against it.
The two cases were discovered in adults in different regions of the state, and they do not appear to be connected.
Neither of the people infected has traveled recently, the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control said.
“That’s frightening,” as it means there could be more undetected cases within the state, Dr. Krutika Kuppalli, an infectious diseases physician at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, stated. “It’s probably more widespread.”
The arrival of the variant shows that “the fight against this deadly virus is far from over,” Dr. Brannon Traxler, South Carolina’s interim public health director, asserted in a statement. “While more COVID-19 vaccines are on the way, supplies are still limited. Every one of us must recommit to the fight by recognizing that we are all on the front lines now. We are all in this together.”
The South Africa variant has been detected in more than 30 countries.
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