Glimmers of hope for SA through Covid-19 cloud

Although pessimism is trending, there are signs that South Africa’s rates of Covid-19 infection and death may not match those in worst-affected countries.

Yes, winter is coming. This may allow coronavirus to survive longer here than in the northern hemisphere.

Some gloomy Tweets bring to mind a 1969 John Denver song:

So you speak to me of sadness

And the coming of the winter

Fear that is within you now

It seems to never end.

True, our testing is not up to scratch. Thousands of people are disobeying lockdown rules. There’s no realistic plan for untold numbers of homeless people. Many more South Africans will die. Our economy is in a tailspin. Lockdown will surely be extended.

And yet hope springs eternal for these reasons: tuberculosis (TB); our early start in combatting Covid-19; and our scientists are in the forefront of coronavirus genome sequencing.

TB is a multi-edged sword. According to the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), TB killed an average of 330 South Africans each day in 2016.

Right now TB is SA’s number one killer, outstripping malaria, road accidents and murder, each of which is ahead of Covid-19. At the time of writing, 12 deaths were attributed to Covid-19 since the first infection.

Yet TB is also the reason why, since 1940, millions of South Africans have been vaccinated with BacillusCalmette-Guerin (BCG). BCG reportedly offers broad protection from respiratory infections. Both TB and Covid-19 affect respiration. WW II prisoner-of-war TB left my father with one functional lung.

According to a US study, countries that have not been using BCG vaccination extensively – Italy, US, Netherlands – have been more severely affected by Covid-19. Spain used BCG vaccination from 1965 to 1981.

The correlation between BCG vaccination and lower Covid-19 fatalities is encouraging for South Africa but correlation does not prove causation. There may be a relationship between BCG and lower Covid-19 death rates, but the relationship has not been confirmed or explained. There is no known cure or vaccine for Covid-19. That remains about 18 months away.

We can speculate that BCG may be one of many reasons why Covid-19 figures in SA are still low. But it remains speculation.

And what about all those still dying daily from TB? Perhaps they were not vaccinated, or the vaccine did not take. In addition, the prevalence of HIV and TB in SA obviously means there are millions with compromised immune systems.

So even if BCG were a wonder cure/vaccination, there would still be a huge number of South Africans vulnerable to Covid-19.

Lockdown is necessary.

South Africa’s TB experience also mean we have hundreds of GeneXpert machines, which are being phased in to boost the number of Covid-19 tests and speed up results.

Another glimmer of hope is that researchers from the NICD and the University of the Western Cape have sequenced the first SARS-CoV-2 genome in SA.

Again, no miracle cure. But this sequencing does provide a genetic “fingerprint”. This helps scientists understand and contain Covid-19’s spread.

We are better equipped, and better led, than most. Here’s hoping.

Martin Williams, DA councillor and former editor of The Citizen.

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