The Ministry of Health will soon put in place capabilities to test for Covid-19 variants that are being reported in various parts of the world, Dr. Daniel Ngamije, the Minister of Health has said. Ngamije made the remarks while speaking during a programme on the national broadcaster on Sunday, January 24, where he along with other government officials were sharing updates about the pandemic and the impact of the lockdown imposed on Kigali. Mutant Covid-19 variants have been detected around the world, including in Africa, as the continent records a new peak in infections. There are mainly two variants that are bothering medics around the world: one that was originally reported from South Africa, and one from the United Kingdom. Both of these, according to reports appear to be more contagious, which is a problem because they may require tougher restrictions on society in order to curb their spread. Answering a question by the TV host concerning whether such variants have been detected in Rwanda, the Minister said medics in the country have not yet carried out specific screening for this, but efforts are underway to establish the needed technology to do it. “We are working on putting in place this capability, and soon, we will be having it available so that it can be used especially on the people coming to Rwanda from outside countries,” he said. Studies are being done by medics in various countries on the nature of the variants, and what it may require to fight them. About virus mutations: According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), mutations in viruses are notable only when they change an important characteristic of the virus such as its ability to infect different hosts, rate of transmission, ability to evade the host’s immune system, vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics, cause pathology or disease severity “Some of these mutations are advantageous to the virus allowing it to survive in new hosts or new environments. A new environment can mean evading an immune response mounted by the host or a therapeutic drug. The SARS-CoV-2 virus mutates just like other viruses. To date, there have been about 4000 mutations in its spike protein alone,” said a statement from the WHO. However, WHO says that unless new variants differ significantly in their mode of transmission or their disease course, the current mitigation strategies should work across variants. Recent research suggested that Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine can protect against the mutation found in both variants of the coronavirus that erupted in Britain and South Africa. WHO advises that to strengthen their responses to currently circulating SARS-COV-2 variants, African countries need resources and “context-specific approaches to implement currently recommended mitigation strategies for infection prevention and control, and patient clinical management.”
