South African Health Minister Joe Phaahla on Friday said the country may have likely entered a new wave of Covid-19 earlier than expected as new infections and hospitalizations have risen rapidly over the past two weeks, reported Reuters.
The rapid spike in the number of new coronavirus cases has been dominated by the BA.4 and BA.5 lineages of the omicron variant which dominated the country’s earlier wave of the virus.
“Whichever way you look at it, it does suggest that we may actually be entering the fifth wave much earlier,” the South African health minister said during a televised press briefing.
He said the health authorities are keeping a close watch on the situation to determine if the increase is sustained which would confirm a new wave.
Phaahla said there was currently no information about the emergence of a new strain, which is expected during the country’s upcoming winter season from May into June.
“We have always been informed that when a new wave comes, it will be driven by a new variant, but at this stage, we have not been alerted to a definite new variant except changes in the omicron,” said the South African health minister.
He said three South African provinces including Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, and Western Cape currently are accounting for 85% of the new coronavirus cases, with the positivity rate in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal above 20%.
South Africa has reported the highest number of infections in Africa since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, accounting for more than a quarter of the continent’s 11.4 million cases.
Over 252,000 people in the country have died from the virus. Just over 44% of the adult population has been vaccinated so far.
On Thursday, the World Health Organization’s Africa office flagged the rise in South Africa’s infections as the main driver of an uptick on the African continent.
