Johannesburg – As South Africa continues to battle the third wave of the pandemic, a new variant of ‘interest’ called the Lambda variant has been detected internationally.
The new Covid-19 Lambda variant has not been detected in South Africa yet, and is also known as C.37.
It was first detected in Peru in December 2020 and has since spread to 30 countries, including Britain and Egypt.
The World Health Organisation identified the Lambda variant as a “variant of interest” in June.
“Lambda carries a number of mutations with suspected phenotypic implications, such as a potential increased transmissibility or possible increased resistance to neutralizing antibodies,” the WHO said.
“There is currently limited evidence on the full extent of the impact associated with these genomic changes, and further robust studies into the phenotypic impacts are needed to better understand the impact on countermeasures and to control the spread. Further studies are also required to validate the continued effectiveness of vaccines,” it said.
Professor Tulio de Oliveira and Dr Richard Lessell from the Network for Genomic Surveillance South Africa (NGS-SA) yesterday delivered an update on this new variant to government’s National Coronavirus Control Council (NCCC).
de Oliveira said in a tweet, “We can confirm, that up to now, we have not detected the Lambda variant in South Africa. We can also confirm that the Delta variant is widespread in many provinces and we are increasing genomic surveillance as we battle the explosive third wave.”
Today we were requested to brief our government on the further spread of Delta in South Africa and the Lambda variant. The presentation is publically available in the NGS-SA website. https://t.co/HPljCtwASM
— Tulio de Oliveira (@Tuliodna) July 6, 2021
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