Omicron’s very low cases give people hope in South Africa

Doctors and scientists in South Africa have received early medical data showing that Omicron coronavirus strains can cause fewer infections than previous waves but warned that the risk of infection could increase in hospitals.

Information from Steve Biko Hospital and the Tshwane District Hospital Complex in the South African capital, Pretoria, where the outbreak is located, showed that on December 2, only nine of the 42 patients in the Covid ward were all uncircumcised. , who were Aided by the virus and needed oxygen.

The rest of the patients tested but were asymptomatic and further supported.

“My friends and I have all become aware of the number of patients in the ward,” said Dr Fareed Abdullah, chief executive of the South African Medical Research Council and a physician at Steve Biko Hospital.

“You’ve been to Covid Hospital every now and then for the last 18 months… ‘

The same is true of health officials around the world who are alarmed by the prevalence of disease in South Africa. But experts have warned that the high rate of cases, coupled with the new possibility of coronavirus could prevent the immune system from previous infections or vaccines, could disrupt hospitals just like the Delta summer storms.

Meanwhile, concerns are mounting in neighboring Zimbabwe where increasing levels of risk are beginning to test the medical system that seems to be the first sign of the spread of Omicron waves across the region.

The prevalence of mild illness in Pretoria is confirmed by data from the entire Gauteng province. Eight out of every 100 patients with Covid-positive receive treatment in intensive care units, down from 23 percent in the Delta wave. And only 2 percent are on ventilators, down from 11 percent.

Although the total number of patients with Covid in Gauteng hospitals is approaching the same level as the Delta waves, researchers said a large proportion of them receive treatment in other cultures. And the number of Covid patients in the main hospital is one-third of what it was three weeks after the Delta collapse.

“I have high hopes,” said Shabir Madhi, a vaccine professor at the University of the Witwatersrand, who predicted that while there would be “cases” of illness and rebirth, a small percentage of cases would require hospitalization. treatment.

On Sunday, US health chief Anthony Fauci also said the first signs of the danger of diversity were. “Encouraging”.

However, Omicron’s potential for severe symptoms may be more likely to be a result of the immune system than the virus mutates, according to Prof Richard Lessells, a communicable doctor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban.

Scientists have insisted that even if the country were to be protected from a deadly genocide, Omicron’s spread alone could lead to serious problems. The number of Covid-19 cases in weekly hospitals in the Gauteng province has more than five times the number of people growing rapidly during the Delta storm.

“If it spreads and spreads well, and gets more people in a short period of time, that’s very bad news for your hospitals and health care,” said Lessells.

Jantjie Taljaard, an infectious disease specialist at Tygerberg Academic Hospital in Cape Town said hospitals in the city were counting on themselves to receive Omicron-like Delta waves after the number of patients rose five times last week.

Taljaard added that he doubted that medical information from Gauteng could be “misleading” due to the prevalence of the disease among young people, who may not be seriously ill.

Across the Zimbabwean border, health officials are deeply concerned about how partial surgery would undermine the country’s health system, which is less armed than its richest counterparts.

There has been a high risk of Covid-positive patients in Zimbabwean hospitals, with rates rising from 6 to 26 in the last seven days until last Friday, when they stopped at the same Delta wave in June. .

Prof Rashida Ferrand, head of research co-operation between a Zimbabwean hospital and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said disease in Zimbabwe was on the rise “throughout the epidemic”, indicating an increase in Gauteng.

“This is threatening more and more medical care, than it would be in South Africa,” Ferrand said.