Public warned about misleading message on Covid-19 variant

The Health Ministry has warned the public not to fall prey to misleading reports about a new variant of Covid-19.

The department said it has noted the overstated message circulating on social media platforms about the detection of a new sub-variant of Covid-19 Omicron called BA.2.75.

Spokesperson Foster Mohale confirmed that this sub-variant (BA.2.75) which was first detected in July 2022, is of interest, but not of concern.

“Thus, it has not had any impact and severity as compared to the dominant sub-variants BA.4 and BA.5.”

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“We are in daily contact with the National Institute for Communicable Diseases and the Network for Genomic Surveillance teams, and there is no need for public panic because the sub-variant has not made any impact,” Mohale said.

Covid-19 not over

Mohale added that the pandemic is not over.

“The lifting of Covid-19 restrictions doesn’t mean the pandemic is over, hence we encourage all unvaccinated and partly vaccinated people to vaccinate and also get booster shots at their nearest public health facility.”

“This is because the department continues to record positive cases and deaths related to COVID-19 on a weekly basis, which confirms that we are not entirely out of the woods,” he said.

Covid-19 vaccine death

Earlier this week, the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (Sahpra) confirm that a second person had died of Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) following vaccination with the Johnson & Johnson(J&J) Covid-19 vaccine.

Sahpra said an assessment of the case was conducted by the National Immunisation Safety Expert Committee (NISEC) using the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) methodology.

“As previously communicated, GBS is a very rare but potentially severe neurological adverse event that is associated with the administration of various vaccines and other medicines and can also be triggered by some bacterial or viral infections, including SARS-CoV-2.”

Symptoms of GBS range from mild to severe, and may include muscle weakness, muscle pain, numbness, and tingling.

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