Unlikely for Covid-19 to ‘simply burn out or disappear’ in the future

With South Africa having entered the fourth wave of the Covid pandemic – grappling with the recent emergence of the Omicron variant, declaring a burnout of the virus – was still far off, according to medical experts.

This, despite the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) reporting soaring numbers of infections, but far less hospitalisation.

Epidemiologist and University of Stellenbosch senior lecturer emeritus in the department of global health Dr Jo Barnes, warned that – despite government ramping up the vaccination campaign – the uptake of vaccines by the South Africa population was slow, due to most people being reluctant.

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A large portion of the unvaccinated population, made it “insufficient to prevent the virus from spreading, because there are so many unprotected people”.

Barnes said it was unlikely the virus would “simply burn out or disappear”.

She cautioned: “The virus has a significant ability to mutate – presenting us with a whole new danger, every time.”

Another major concern, fuelling the increase in infections, was the large number of HIV-positive people not on treatment.

“There are an estimated 7.7 million people in South Africa who are HIV positive and only 71% are on treatment,” said Barnes.

“That percentage of people taking treatment was also reduced during the various lockdown periods, because people finding it difficult to access their chronic medication at the time.

“Because of the immune systems of HIV positive persons who are not on chronic treatment are damaged, they are particularly prone to allow prolonged circulation of the virus in their bodies, thereby opening the door to more variants forming.

“So, the containment of new variants is also a fight to get all HIV positive persons on treatment to greatly reduce this risk.”

In future, predicted Barnes, Covid vaccines would be added to the list of seasonal flu viruses – annually circling the globe.

“I hope and have confidence that science will come up with vaccines that we can take every year, enabling us to live with the virus in ways that are less destructive to society,” she said.

“The present vaccines are a wonderful achievement in an astonishingly short time, but they do not confer lifelong immunity, as is the case with polio vaccines.

“We will have to rely on the continued cooperation of the population to vaccinate in order to keep the numbers down.”

On why there was a soaring number of infections reported and far less hospitalisation, Barnes said: “It is early days yet and we will have to see whether the virus spreads more efficiently, but causing less severe disease. It would be a huge benefit for our desperate health services if that turns out to be so.

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“Many of the early observations came from patients in the private health system – a skewed picture. Most of those persons are better nourished and have better access to good health services, so they may show less severe disease.”

Professor Heather Zar of the University of Cape Town’s department of paediatrics and child health at the Red Cross Children’s Hospital concurred with Barnes.

She said it was impossible to ascertain whether SA has reached a burnout of the virus, because “all depends on whether another variant arises; also on vaccination coverage and protection”.

Zar called on government to introduce booster doses – “especially for healthcare workers who are in the frontline” in fighting Covid.

“We urgently need booster doses of vaccine as antibody levels drop substantially after four to six months. The current trend in hospitalisation and numbers of severe disease is due to protection from vaccination and from prior infections.”