According to the scientists, a new potential variant of interest (VOI) of the novel corona virus has been identified in the region of South Africa, and the scientists from the KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform, along with the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) of the country of South Africa, that has been first spotted in May 2021 during the third wave of the novel corona virus in the country.
Since May 2021, the strain of the novel corona virus, that has been assigned to the PANGO lineage C.1.2, has now been detected in most of the provinces of South Africa and also in the seven other countries across the continents including Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania.
The variant of the novel corona virus has been believed to ben evolved from the C.1, which has been one of the lineages predominant during the very first outbreak of the novel corona virus in the country of South Africa, and according to the abstract of the study, the C.1.2 has now been associated with the decreased sensitivity of neutralisation, along with the increased transmissibility.
As compared to the C.1 variant, the new variant of the novel corona virus is now undergoing to the substantial mutations and has now been further away from the original corona virus that has been detected in the region of Wuhan in China than any other variant of concern, that was firstly detected across the world, and the results of the study has also been indicating that, the C.1.2 has been developing the 41.8 mutations every year.
