'The virus has a significant ability to mutate – presenting us with a whole new danger, every time,' a medical expert has cautioned.
A general view of Beaches on Boxing Day December 26, 2020 in Cape Town, South Africa. Picture: Brenton Geach/Gallo Images
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.A large portion of the unvaccinated population, made it “insufficient to prevent the virus from spreading, because there are so many unprotected people”.
“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.
“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. 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.“Many of the early observations came from patients in the private health system – a skewed picture.
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