Africa CDC urges strong Covid prevention measures amid emergence of new variant

The Africa CDC made the call on Friday after the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) in South Africa announced the detection of a new variant, B.1.1.529, of the SARS-COV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19 pandemic. The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Friday classified it as a "Variant of Concern".

"National health authorities across the continent should reinforce public health and social measures and accelerate immunisation of their populations, prioritising high risk groups, ahead of upcoming new waves of Covid-19 infections," Africa CDC agency said in a statement. 

It called on African countries to expedite Covid-19 vaccination drive to halt the spread of the virus, saying, "Vaccines remain a key tool to prevent severe cases and deaths from Covid-19 infection."

The agency underscored the need to reinforce timely genomic surveillance through coordination with national and regional pathogen genomics laboratories, Xinhua news agency reported. 

As of Saturday, the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in Africa has reached 8,616,912 with 222,301 deaths and 8,064,499 recoveries, according to the agency.