South Africa records 431 new COVID deaths

By Hassan Isilow

JOHANNESBURG (AA) - South Africa on Tuesday registered 431 COVID-19 related deaths in a 24-hour period, bringing the country’s total fatalities to 82,261, according to the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD).

The NICD also announced that 7,086 new COVID-19 cases were identified in the country, taking the total number of laboratory confirmed infections to 2.7 million.

The institute said the majority of new cases are from KwaZulu-Natal province, accounting for 25% of infections, followed by Eastern Cape at 22% and the Western Cape at 17%. The remaining six provinces account for 33% of all cases.

Tuesday's figure for new infections was higher than Monday’s new cases, which stood at 5,644, but lower than the average number of new cases per day over the seven preceding days, which was 9,816.

The institute said the seven-day moving average daily number of cases has decreased.

South Africa has the highest number of infections and deaths on the continent. The country of over 60 million people has administered 12.3 million vaccine doses, of which only 5.82 million people have been fully vaccinated.

-New variant detected

On Monday, scientists in South Africa sounded the alarm after detecting a new COVID-19 variant, known as C.1.2, in all of the country’s nine provinces, though at a relatively low rate.

The NICD said in a statement that the C.1.2 variant was first detected in the country in May this year and that research into the lineage had been ongoing since then, drawing scientists' attention as it had additional mutations compared to variants of interest and concern like the Delta variant listed by the World Health Organization (WHO).

"Based on our understanding of the mutations in this variant, we suspect that it might be able to partially evade the immune response. But despite this, vaccines will still offer high levels of protection against hospitalization and death," the NICD said.

The institute said it expects new variants to continue to emerge wherever the virus is spreading.​​​​​​​

"Vaccination remains critical to protect those in our communities at high risk of hospitalization and death, to reduce the strain on the health system, and to help slow transmission," it added.