South Africa is currently in the grip of a new Covid wave as scientists report 6,000 positive cases a day driven by yet another variant of the virus.
Known as BA.4, the new coronavirus has pushed up the number of positive tests in the country from 4% just weeks ago to now almost 20%.
It is currently unknown if the new version will become the dominant threat worldwide with a handful cases reported outside South Africa.
BA.4 has so far been found in Europe, Australia and New Zealand when someone arrived in the country and tested positive.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said last month it was monitoring the sub-variant to asses its danger level.
Although there is no proof to suggest it is more transferrable, the WHO warned it could be months before its severity is known.
South Africa was also among the first to detect the deadly omicron variant, which caused thousands of deaths at the turn of the year- more than the Delta virus.
Concerningly for parents worldwide, children have so far been among the first to be hospitalised with BA.4 - similar to the early days of omicron before it dominated cases worldwide.
Benido Impouma, a WHO official in Africa, said: “The latest surge shows that people must remain vigilant and continue to adhere to public safety measures such as wearing masks, washing hands and social distancing.”
Local scientists say the new variant will soon be the dominant force in South Africa and is more transferrable than omicron.
A recent report by the Who suggests it currently does not appear more severe than previous iterations.
It reads: “WHO continues to closely monitor the BA.4, BA.5, and BA.2.12.1 variants as part of Omicron VOC and provide further updates as more evidence on severity becomes available.
“WHO requests countries to continue to be vigilant, to monitor and report sequences, as well as to conduct independent and comparative analyses of the different emerging variants.
“Preliminary data from South Africa using S gene target failure data indicate no difference in the risk of hospitalisation for BA.4 and BA.5, as compared to BA.1.
“However, the short follow-up of BA.4 and BA.5 cases does not allow for conclusions on disease severity of these sublineages to be drawn at this stage.”
As of this month, over 500 million confirmed cases and over six million deaths have been reported globally.
So far the BA.4 has been far less able to thrive in the blood of people vaccinated.
Samples from people who had been infected with the original Omicron variant saw a big drop in neutralising antibody production when tested against the BA.4 and BA.5 sublineages.
Researchers said: “The low absolute neutralisation levels for BA.4 and BA.5, particularly in the unvaccinated group, are unlikely to protect well against symptomatic infection.
“This may indicate that, based on neutralisation escape, BA.4 and BA.5 have potential to result in a new infection wave.”
Currently only about 30% of South Africa's population of 60 million is fully vaccinated.
