Abstract

C.1.2 COVID VARIANT

Pranjali Ashok Bhosale* and Hemantkumar Bhosale

ABSTRACT

In January 2020 the World Health Organization(WHO) declared the outbreak of a new corona virus disease,COVID-19, to be a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, WHO stated that there is a high risk of COVID-19 spreading to other countries around the world. A new variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus which cause COVID-19, has been detected in South Africa and many more countries globally which could be more transmissible and evade protection provided by vaccines, according to study. Here we report the identification of potential variant of interest assigned to PANGO lineage C.1.2. This lineage was first identified in May 2021 and evolved from C.1, one of the lineage that dominated first wave of SARS-CoV-2 infections in South Africa and was last detected in January 2021. C.1.2 has since been detected across the majority of the provinces in South Africa and in seven other countries spanning Africa, Europe, Asia and Oceania.

Keywords: South African variant, PANGO lineage C.1.2, Deadly strain C.1.2.