COVID-19: J&J and Pfizer vaccines show resilience against Delta virus

The government has officially acknowledged that the deadly Delta variant – first discovered in India – is on its way to becoming the dominant strain of COVID-19 in South Africa.

VACCINES SHOW RESILIENCE AGAINST DELTA VARIANT

According to a report of Daily Maverick, the J&J and Pfizer vaccines show resilience against rampant Delta virus.

While it is 30-60% more infectious than the Beta variant (which drove SA’s second wave), the good news is that there is so far no evidence that it is resistant to the two existing vaccines being rolled out (the two-shot Pfizer and single-dose Johnson & Johnson).

ALSO READ: ‘Delta variant is in Gauteng, and it’s spreading rapidly’ – expert

Professor Tulio de Oliveira, Director of the KwaZulu-Natal Research and Innovation Sequencing Platform (Krisp), says, “there’s no evidence of broad vaccine escape. We have good evidence from the UK, (where it has matured and waned), that their vaccines gave high levels of protection against severe disease.”

He was co-presenting a talk with Krisp colleague and infectious diseases expert, Dr Richard Lessells, entitled, “Navigating the Third Wave,” to 1,200 healthcare workers on Thursday evening in a Discovery Health-sponsored webinar.

Professor de Oliveira warned that unless South Africans started avoiding crowded, non-ventilated spaces and stepped up their handwashing, social distancing and mask-wearing in greater numbers, the reproductive number of the Delta variant would rise, accelerating existing exponential growth. He revealed that as of Thursday evening, Gauteng had a 72% prevalence of the Delta variant and the Western Cape 60%.

ALSO READ: Sore throat, headache and runny nose linked to Delta variant of COVID-19

Daily Maverick reported that he said a network of eight laboratories around the country was now partnering with private labs and universities to do faster genomic surveillance from samples being hurriedly collected.

“If we don’t bring the reproductive number down to below one it will increase even faster,” he said.

SA’s reproductive number is now at 1.3 which he describes as “alarming”. He says it’s been above 1 for 4-6 weeks, having started at below 1.

Below a reproductive number of 1, each existing infection causes less than one new infection, causing the disease to decline and eventually die out. However, at 1 and above the reproductive number represents the number of infections a single virus carrier can cause.

LATEST CONFIRMED CASES OF COVID-19

The National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) has on Friday reported 24,270 new COVID-19 cases that have been identified in South Africa, which brings the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases to 2,019,826.

As per the National Department of Health, a further 303 COVID-19 related deaths were reported in the last 24 hours, bringing total fatalities to 61,332 to date.

GAUTENG STILL BATTLES THIRDWAVE INFECTIONS

Gauteng continues to lead with the highest number of COVID-19 cases in the country. The province reported a total of 14 198 (59%) positive cases in the last 24 hours.
Gauteng is followed by the Western Cape (11%), North West and KwaZulu-Natal (7% each) provinces.

ALSO READ: COVID-19: SA reports 24 270 new cases, Gauteng leads with +14 000