US: African coronavirus variant in South Carolina

By Ovunc Kutlu

ANKARA (AA) - The first case of the South African coronavirus variant was reported in the US state of South Carolina, its health department announced Thursday.

Two cases associated with the variant were detected, the agency said in a statement.

South Carolina health officials said they were notified late Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) about the variant.

"Experts agree that existing vaccines work to protect us from this variant, even if we don’t know precisely how effective they are. At this time, there’s no evidence to suggest that the B.1.351 variant causes more severe illness," it said.

The CDC said in a separate statement that it is at an early stage to understand the variant.

"At this time, we have no evidence that infections by this variant cause more severe disease. Like the U.K. and Brazilian variants, preliminary data suggests this variant may spread more easily and quickly than other variants," it said.

Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said Thursday that the variant is of "greater concern" and "really could be problematic."

Pfizer-BioNTech said late Wednesday that their vaccine is effective against virus strains detected in the UK and South Africa.

Moderna announced Monday that its vaccine appears to work against the strain found in the UK but said it could be less effective against the one in South Africa.