Transport minister Fikile Mbalula said that South Africa will seek to join a digital ‘vaccine passport’ scheme being tested by a number of airlines.
Presenting his departmental budget speech on Friday, Mbalula said that South Africa must ensure that it joins the growing number of countries that accepts the International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) mobile travel pass for COVID vaccination.
This particular initiative was tested successfully by Singapore Airlines, and more than 20 carriers, the minister said.
“In recent months, Singapore has announced that it will accept visitors who use a mobile travel passes containing digital certificates for Covid-19 tests and vaccines,” Mbalula said.
“This makes Singapore one of the first countries to adopt this initiative. Singapore will accept the IATA mobile travel pass for pre-departure checks, where travellers can get clearance to fly to and enter Singapore by showing a smartphone application containing their data from accredited laboratories.”
The IATA’s app allows travellers to store digital information from certified labs. It will be available for download later this month. IATA aims to bring in additional changes such as QR code scanning by immigration officers.
Vaccine passports have been the subjects of debates over equitability, access and potential for abuse. However, vaccine passports are not only permissible under international health regulations, they already exist. The World Health Organization endorses certificates confirming vaccination against yellow fever for entry into certain countries. They also incentivise vaccination, a public good.
Currently, South Africa has 62 ‘major restrictions’ from other countries in place, with suspended travel, stringent requirements for entry or outright bans. Meanwhile there are 92 moderate restrictions in place on South Africa, where travel is possible subject to measures such as COVID tests on arrival.
Despite controversial claims, the SARS-CoV-2 virus likely does not integrate its genetic material into the genes of humans, according to a study published in the Journal of Virology.
A prior study reported the virus’s genetic material was found to have integrated into human DNA in cells in petri dishes, though the scientists conducting the newer research now say this was resulted from genetic artefacts in the testing.
Study co-lead author Majid Kazemian, a Purdue University assistant professor of biochemistry and computer science, said that this finding has two important implications.
“Relatively little is known about why some individuals persistently test positive for the virus even long after clearing the infection,” he explained. “This is important because it’s not clear whether such individuals have been re-infected or whether they continue to be infectious to others. So-called ‘human genome invasion’ by SARS-CoV-2 has been suggested as an explanation for this observation, but our data do not support this case.
“If the virus was able to integrate its genetic material into the human genome, that could have meant that any other mRNA could do the same. But because we have shown that this is not supported by current data, this should allay any concerns about the safety of mRNA vaccines,” he concluded.
It is indeed possible for virus genetic material to be incorporated into the DNA of humans and other animals, which are referred to as ‘chimeric events’. These have happened over many millions of years; human DNA contains approximately 100 000 pieces of ‘fossil DNA’ from viruses that have been accumulated throughout our evolution, accounting for nearly 10% of the genetic material in our cells. Some viral fragments even play a role in diseases such as cancer.
Recent scientific journal articles have raised controversy by claiming that the SARS-CoV-2 virus can also cause these chimeric events. Even before this study demonstrated it was not the case, the researchers suspected it was unlikely, said co-lead author Dr Ben Afzali, an Earl Stadtman Investigator of the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.
“While an earlier study suggested that, in cells infected with SARS-CoV-2, genetic material from the virus copied and pasted itself into human DNA, our group thought this seemed unlikely,” Dr Afzali said. “SARS-CoV-2, like HIV, has its genetic material in the form of RNA but, unlike HIV, does not have the machinery to convert the RNA into DNA. SARS-CoV-2 is unlikely to paste itself into the genome and coronaviruses, in general, does not go near human DNA. As our study shows, we find it highly improbable that SARS-CoV-2 could integrate into the human genome.”
Christiane Wobus, associate professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Michigan Medical School, another co-lead author on the study, said that the collective understanding of RNA viruses is that SARS-CoV-2 integrating into the human genome was extremely unlikely, it was still worth asking the question.
“Unexpected findings in science—when confirmed independently—lead to paradigm shifts and propel fields forward. Therefore, it is good to be open-minded and examine unexpected results carefully, which I believe we did in our study,” she said. “However, we did not find conclusive evidence for SARS-CoV-2 integration, but instead showed that during the RNA sequencing methodology, chimeras are produced at a very low level as an artifact of the laboratory technique.”
To examine any possible integration event, the researchers came up with a novel technique involving extraction the genetic material from infected cells and then boosting the amount of the genetic material 30-fold. With any chimeric events in the host cell DNA, these bits of genetic material from SARS-CoV-2 would have also increased those by 30. The data did not show this.
“We found the frequency of host-virus chimeric events was, in fact, not greater than background noise,” Kazemian stated. “When we enriched the SARS-CoV-2 sequences from the bulk RNA of infected cells, we found that the chimeric events are, in all likelihood, artifacts. Our work does not support the claim that SARS-CoV-2 fuses or integrates into human genomes.”
Journal information: Bingyu Yan et al, Host-virus chimeric events in SARS-CoV2 infected cells are infrequent and artifactual, Journal of Virology (2021). DOI: 10.1128/JVI.00294-21
As South Africa awaits an impending third wave, twenty-eight schools in the Northern Cape have had to close as a result of COVID cases this month, while all school contact sports are being suspended.
While infections are on the rise in most provinces, Northern Cape has 314 patients in hospital with COVID, according to information from the National Institute for Communicable diseases.
“Since 1 May we can report that 28 schools in the Province have been directly affected due to COVID-19 cases,” the department said in a statement on Wednesday.
The department said that those schools were closed for disinfecting and those who were infected with COVID were isolated.
“To date, 13 schools still remain closed and will reopen once it is safe to do so. The department also recorded from 1 May to date, 124 positive cases that were reported at schools thus impacting on valuable learning and teaching time being lost.”
Four schools in the small town of Calvinia were also closed earlier this year to contain rapidly spreading COVID infections.
The provincial education department’s Geoffrey van der Merwe called on communities to be even more vigilant and follow COVID safety protocols.
“District offices developed recovery plans for these schools to ensure that the academic performance of learners are not negatively affected,” he said.
Since the second phase of the programme kicked off this week, a mere 329 people in the province have so far received a COVID vaccine shot. So far approximately 9500 healthcare workers in the Northern Cape have been vaccinated.
This was decided on by the Council of Education Ministers in a virtual meeting held on Wednesday morning .
However, the Department of Basic Education said non-contact sport training in schools could continue, on the condition that all social distancing, hygiene and safety measures would be adhered to and that there was no physical contact between participants during training.
Two Indian states have decided to distribute the controversial anti-parasitic drug ivermectin as a preventative measure, MedPage Today reports.
Goa, on the west coast, and Uttarakhand, a northern state in the Himalayas, will give the anti-parasitic to wide swaths of their population as a preventative measure in hopes of preventing future outbreaks.
Leaders of both states insisted that their recommendations were evidence-based. “An expert medical panel has recommended this,” Om Prakash, chief secretary of Uttarakhand, told Reuters. Vishwajit Rane, health minister of Goa, also said an expert panel from Europe found the drug shortened recovery time and reduced the risk of death, the news agency reported.
Yet no large randomised controlled trial has proven the drug’s efficacy against COVID, and no prominent health group — the NIH and the WHO among them — has recommended the drug in treatment or prophylaxis.
The use of ivermectin for COVID has been the subject of bitter debate in South Africa, and human administration of ivermectin was approved for compassionate use with guidelines released in January. Following a court order, pharmacists and doctors in South Africa are allowed to make up small batches of medicines containing Ivermectin on prescription by a doctor and in small quantities, and can be used.
Madhu Pai, MD, PhD, professor of epidemiology and global health at McGill University in Montreal, tweeted a link to guidelines developed by collaborators in the UK and India, led by Cochrane and Christian Medical College Vellore in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.
On May 15, the group updated their guidance to state that it recommends “against using ivermectin for treatment of patients with any severity of COVID-19. Ivermectin should only be used in the context of a randomized controlled trial.”
Officials in Goa said the state will give ivermectin tablets to anyone aged 18 or over. Through most of the recent COVID surge, the popular tourist destination has remained open to holidaymakers, only imposing a 15-day lockdown last week.
Meanwhile, Uttarakhand plans to distribute the drug even more widely, giving it to anyone over age 2, with the exception of pregnant and lactating women, according. The state has been struggling with high caseloads, which rose from under 300 a day in early April to more than 7000 a day last week, Reuters reported.
The state recently hosted Kumbh Mela, a huge festival which drew millions of people from across the country for a two week long celebration including bathing in the river Ganges. Reports indicated many people did not wear masks and were closely packed. This became a massive superspreader event, with cases all over India being traced to it. Some districts of Madhya Pradesh reported that 20% of cases were festival returnees.
Goa and Uttarakhand’s moves have not gone unnoticed by ivermectin advocates. The Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance, a long time champion of the drug, paid scant attention to the difference between causation and correlation in a recent tweet on the issue: “Case counts and deaths are falling in India! A close look … shows that the declines occurred as the Health Ministry [sic] began its widespread distribution of #ivermectin.”
Coming just days after a third wave was officially declared in Gauteng, and months of delays, frustration and confusion, South Africa’s COVID vaccination programme is at last rolling out on Monday.
The vaccination programme will start off mostly on old age homes, at 87 sites across 9 provinces.
Fanned out across nine provinces and 87 sites, healthcare workers and those licensed to administer vaccines will start the mammoth task, which will kick off mostly at old age homes.
Those who are registered and eligible will receive a vaccination date and site to visit where they will either receive the once-off Johnson and Johnson vaccination – or the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine with another to be taken a fortnight later.
A vaccine site such as a pharmacy may charge up to R354.75 per dose of Pfizer, and R330 for a dose of Johnson and Johnson, according to a memo released by the department of health.
Additionally, a R70 fee for administering the vaccine will be billed to the recipient’s health insurance company or the government if uninsured.
The programme will also cover the hundreds of thousands of healthcare workers who have not yet received their vaccinations.
Health Minister Zweli Mkhize, health MECs and other representatives described their plans for the nation on Sunday night.
Dr Mkhize is under no illusion about what lies ahead and what it will take to get it all done.
“Five million senior citizens are targeted to be completed by the end of June, provided that the supply of vaccines flow as anticipated.”
To put this into context, that’s just 44 days for this target to be met and given some of the setbacks experienced during the Sisonke implementation study, the government will face many sceptics.
“We know that everyone has been very anxious to know what will happen and how we will start to vaccinate our most vulnerable citizens and then move onto vaccinating the general population,” Dr Mkhize said.
According to the minister, over 1.2 million senior citizens have registered to be inoculated thus far. Officials are also hoping to vaccinate an additional 700 000 health workers during this time.
Text messages are being sent out to citizens aged 60 years and over, to get help them prepare.
As the campaign begins, there should be over 975 000 doses of Pfizer vaccines in stock, which have stringent, ultra-cold storage requirements.
Dr Mkhize emphasised that Monday or this week is not open to all senior citizens 60 year and above, rather that old age homes will be the priority.
“We recommend that as many people as possible register beforehand. We will not accommodate people walking into the vaccination sites, the program has been designed to avoid long queues, that’s why we want to keep people on going in based on the message inviting them for vaccination.”
However, some provinces with smaller populations,such as Mpumalanga and the North West, have stated they would try to accommodate senior citizens who would have travelled long distances to vaccination sites.
Dr Mkhize underscored the difficulty of conducting such a programme.
“This is just to know how many vaccines you will get out of a vial and how you draw out the requisite amount, to allow us a few days to iron out teething problems and we expect there will be many teething problems so we are expected to start slow.”
In a letter in the journal Science, eighteen scientists from world-leading research institutions are urging their colleagues to dig deeper into the origins of the coronavirus responsible for the global pandemic.
They argue that there is still not enough evidence to rule out the possibility that the SARS-CoV-2 virus escaped from a lab in China, and they call for a “proper investigation” into the matter.
“We believe this question deserves a fair and thorough science-based investigation, and that any subsequent judgment should be made on the data available,” said Dr. David Relman, professor of microbiology and immunology at Stanford University who helped pen the letter.
They were motivated partly by the March 30 publication of a report commissioned by the World Health Organization that sought to discover the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
The report’s authors, jointly credited to the WHO and China, ranked each of four possible scenarios on a scale from “extremely unlikely” to “very likely.” After assessing evidence provided by the Chinese team members, the authors concluded the probability that the virus jumped from animal to humans via an intermediary animal was “likely to very likely,” while an accidental laboratory release was deemed “extremely unlikely.”
Other potential pathways the investigators considered were a direct jump from animal to human without an intermediate host (“possible to likely”) and transmission from the surface of frozen food products (“possible”).
“We’re reasonable scientists with expertise in relevant areas,” Relman said, “and we don’t see the data that says this must be of natural origin.”
Ravindra Gupta, a professor of clinical microbiology at the University of Cambridge who signed the letter, said he would like to review lab notes from scientists working at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and see a list of viruses used at the institute over a five-year period.
The WHO report documents a meeting between its investigators and several members of the institute, including lab director Yuan Zhiming, who gave the joint team a tour of the facility.
At the meeting, representatives of WIV refuted the possibility that SARS-CoV-2 could have leaked from the lab, noting that none of the three SARS-like viruses cultured in the laboratory are closely related to that virus.
They also pointed out that blood samples obtained from workers and students in a research group led by Shi Zhengli, a WIV virologist who studies SARS-like coronaviruses that originate in bats, contained no SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, which would indicate a current or past infection.
However, Relman said that, as a scientist, more than this thirdhand account was needed for him to exclude the possibility of of an accidental laboratory leak.
“Show us the test you used: What was the method? What were the results and the names of the people tested? Did you test a control population?” Relman said. “On all accounts, it was not an adequate, detailed kind of presentation of data that would allow an outside scientist to arrive at an independent conclusion.”
WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was similarly cautious about the report’s findings.
“Although the team has concluded that a laboratory leak is the least likely hypothesis, this requires further investigation, potentially with additional missions involving specialist experts, which I am ready to deploy,” he said in an address to WHO member states on March 30. “Let me say clearly that, as far as WHO is concerned, all hypotheses remain on the table.”
Michael Worobey, who studies viruses at the University of Arizona to better understand pandemics, also signed the letter. From the beginning of the pandemic, he considered that it was either an escape from a lab or natural transmission from animal to human. His stance is still unchanged.
“There just hasn’t been enough definitive evidence either way,” he said, “so both of those remain on the table for me.”
Worobey works in his own lab with a grad student who collects viruses from bats in the wild, and he’s considered how this kind of work could introduce new pathogen to humans.
“As someone who does this, I’m very aware of the opening that creates for new viruses to get close to humans, and so I think that’s another reason I take this seriously,” he said. “I’m concerned about it in my own work.”
SARS-CoV-2 has been shown not to be a laboratory construct genetically modified to make it more transmissible to humans, Worobey said. But an unmodified virus could have been brought into the lab and then moved into humans.
“I’ve seen no evidence that I can look at and say, ‘Oh, OK, this certainly refutes the accidental lab origin and makes it virtually 100% certain that it was a natural event,'” he said. “Until we’re at the stage, both possibilities are viable.”
Scientists said there was one piece of conclusive evidence that would indicate the virus had indeed spread to humans through a natural event—the discovery of the wild animals in whom the virus originated.
Akiko Iwasaki, a professor of immunobiology and epidemiology at Yale University, noted that the WHO report mentioned the testing of more than 80 000 animal samples collected across China. None of those tests turned up a SARS-CoV-2 antibody or snippet of the virus’ genetic material before or after the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in China.
“However, it is possible that an animal reservoir was missed and further investigation may reveal such evidence,” said Iwasaki, another signatory to the letter.
David Robertson, the head of viral genomics and bioinformatics at the University of Glasgow had not signed the letter, saying he didn’t understand the point.
“Nobody is saying that a lab accident isn’t possible—there’s just no evidence for this beyond the Wuhan Institute of Virology being in Wuhan,” he said, adding that viruses naturally jump from animals to humans all the time.
Although he agreed with the authors of the letter that it was essential to find the origins of SARS-CoV-2 to prepare for the next pandemic, “wasting time investigating labs is a distraction from this,” he said.
Relman disagrees.
“If it turns out to be of natural origin, we’ll have a little bit more information about where that natural reservoir is, and how to be more careful around it in the future,” he said. “And if it’s a laboratory, then we’re talking about thinking much more seriously about what kinds of experiments we do and why.”
The letter’s authors noted that in this time of anti-Asian sentiment in some countries, it was Chinese doctors, scientists, journalists and citizens who shared with the world crucial information about the spread of the virus.
“We should show the same determination in promoting a dispassionate, science-based discourse on this difficult but important issue,” they wrote. Source: Medical Xpress
Journal information: Jennifer Sills et al. Investigate the origins of COVID-19, Science (2021). DOI: 10.1126/science.abj0016
Earlier today, Gauteng Premier David Makhura has announced that the third wave of COVID has hit the province, home to 15 million people.
The province had been recording over 1 000 positive cases for the past two days. In particular, there had been a spike in the number of new COVID cases over the last three weeksthe in the Vaal’s Emfuleni region.
“Having seen over 1000 cases a day we cannot afford to close down the provinces economy but definitely we want to see an increase in restrictions,” said Makhura. Businesses meanwhile had been warning of lockdowns ahead of a third wave.
He made the remarks during the official opening of a refurbished mining hospital in Carletonville, west of Johannesburg.
Test positivity rate had risen to 7.45% on Wednesday, the highest in five days and for a month the rate had hovered close to or above the 5% threshold of what is considered too high.
On Thursday, the health department reported that COVID cases had increased by 3 221 in the last 24 hours, further evidence that a third wave was imminent.
Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize said in a statement that the national tally of confirmed cases to date now stood at 1 605 252, with 29 362 of these being active cases. Meanwhile, the recovery rate now stands at 94.7% after 1.52 million patients beat COVID.
Meanwhile, eight new cases of B.1.617.2, known as the Indian variant, have been detected in South Africa.
Professor Tulio de Oliveira, the director of the KZN Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform, said that these were found in crew members of a commercial vessel that arrived in Durban Port from India.
De Oliveira tweeted: “The Network for Genomic Surveillance in South Africa, confirmed detection of eight more genomes B.1.617.2 (Indian variant) and two community transmission of B.1.1.7 (UK variant) in South Africa.”
The health department called the increasing number of COVID cases across South Africa “worrying” on Wednesday night, adding that although close, the requirements had not yet been met for a third wave.
In a statement, the department said that it had observed an increase in the weekly number of new cases over the past seven and 14 days compared to the previous corresponding periods. Increases have been seen in all provinces — particularly the North West and Gauteng. There was also an increase in the number of COVID-related deaths over the past seven days.
However the department maintained that these increases had not yet met the requirements of the “resurgence threshold”. Dr Zweli Mkhize however said that numbers would not go downunless containment measures were put in place.
“There was an increase in new cases from 8593 cases in the preceding seven days (April 26-May 2) to 12 531 cases in the past seven days (May 3-9), constituting a 46% increase. The 14-day comparisons also showed that the cases increased from 17 017 in the preceding 14 days to 21 124 cases in the past 14 days, an overall 24% increase. All provinces showed a positive percentage increase, with Northern Cape 68% up in the past seven days followed by Gauteng at 63%, Limpopo at 47%, North West at 42% and Western Cape at 39%.
“The new Covid-19 related deaths increased by 18.22% in the past seven days (May 3-9) to 318 from 269 in the preceding seven days (April 26-May 2). However, the 14-day comparison showed the deaths decreased by 28.93% to 587 in the past 14 days compared to 826 in the preceding 14 days. The cumulative case fatality ratio is 3.43% (54 735 of 1 596 595),” the department said.
Hospital admissions fortunately “have not shown an increase”. As of Wednesday, the detection rate for COVID tests was 7.45%. Adam Lowe, a member of the ASSA COVID working group, said that based on modelling and historical parallels, three scenarios are possible for a third wave: an early, less severe, wave in May driven by school holidays; a later, more severe third wave; or a sudden and severe, but unlikely, third wave.
“As much as these figures are worrying, our resurgence dashboard, which was developed by the South African Covid-19 Modelling Consortium, which is updated thrice a week, still shows that we have not as a country reached a resurgence threshold, though some districts in the country are fast approaching the threshold,” the department said.
The department of health added that it was working with provinces to update their resurgence plans, which mainly focus on case management, contract tracing, oxygen availability, bed capacity, respiratory support equipment and human resources.
It also said that the main drivers of the new wave will be one or both of the resurgence of new variants and growing fatigue to measures such as social distancing and masking. Genomic surveillance is being conducted to catch the emergence of new variants.
“So we want to assure South Africans that we have not yet hit the third wave, however we are at risk and we hence need to be on heightened vigilance,” the department said.
New research shows that individuals living with HIV and AIDS have an increased risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection and death from COVID.
An estimated 38 million people around the world are living with HIV/AIDS, according to the World Health Organization, 7.5 million of whom are in South Africa, according to UNAIDS.
In their review, researchers at Penn State College of Medicine found that people living with HIV had a 24% higher risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection and a 78% higher risk of death from COVID than people without HIV. They analysed data from 22 prior studies with nearly 21 million participants in North America, Africa, Europe and Asia to determine to what extent people living with HIV/AIDS are susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection and death from COVID.
Participants were mostly male (66%) and the median age was 56. The most common comorbidities among the HIV-positive population were hypertension, diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and chronic kidney disease. Most patients (96%) were on antiretroviral therapy (ART).
“Previous studies were inconclusive on whether or not HIV is a risk factor for susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 infection and poor outcomes in populations with COVID-19,” said Dr Paddy Ssentongo, lead researcher and assistant professor at the Penn State Center for Neural Engineering. “This is because a vast majority of people living with HIV/AIDS are on ART, some of which have been used experimentally to treat COVID-19.”
Pre-existing conditions common among people living with HIV/AIDS, may contribute to the severity of their COVID infections, noted the investigators. It remains inconclusive as to whether antiviral drugs, such as tenofovir and protease-inhibitors, reduce the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection and death from COVID in people with living with HIV/AIDS.
“As the pandemic has evolved, we’ve obtained sufficient information to characterize the epidemiology of HIV/SARS-CoV-2 coinfection, which could not be done at the beginning of the pandemic due to scarcity of data,” said Vernon Chinchilli, fellow researcher and chair of the Department of Public Health Sciences. “Our findings support the current Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance to prioritize persons living with HIV to receive a COVID-19 vaccine.”
A South African perfume expert has developed a treatment to help people who have lost their sense of smell due to COVID.
Loss of smell and taste is one of the most prominent symptoms and after-effects of COVID infection. A meta-analysis of 27 studies showed that 48.47% of COVID patients reported loss of sense of smell, and loss of taste was reported in 20 studies with a prevalence of 41.47%.
While some people only experience a minimal loss of smell, others, especially those who have experienced prolonged COVID infection, may wait months for their sense of smell to return, if it all.
For those patients who battle with their sense of smell after recovering from COVID-19, it is a disheartening experience. Luckily Scenterprises Inc founder, Sue Phillips, has found an amazing way to help these patients smell all the wonderful things in life again.
Phillips is a renowned South African fragrance expert and a self-proclaimed ‘scentrepreneur’, with over 40 years’ experience in the fragrance industry. She is a vocal advocate for the amazing qualities of fragrances and is the author of a book, titled The Power of Perfume.
In an interview with Cape Talk, Phillips described her breakthrough discovery – the role perfume can play in helping those who have had COVID regain their sense of smell.
A perfume is made up of a complex blend of notes – the top, middle and base notes, explained Phillips. She said that she met with a woman who had lost her sense of smell for over a year due to COVID. The woman was unable to identify the lighter, or top notes of the perfume. However, the woman was able to pick up on the stronger notes.
“Suddenly we had a breakthrough and she was quite emotional. She finally said, and she was crying, ‘Oh my goodness, I can finally smell something beautiful’,” Phillips told Cape Talk.
Phillips observed that as they continue with the process, more and more fragrances can be identified by patients.
The perfume expert is now offering Zoom sessions educating people about this process and is producing ‘scent kits’ to help patients battling with their sense of smell.
