South Africa Scientists Monitor New COVID-19 Variant With High Mutation Rate

NICD scientists on Monday said C.1.2. was only "present at very low levels" and that it was too early to predict how it might evolve.

Scientists in South Africa are monitoring a new coronavirus variant with an unusually high mutation rate, and whose frequency has gradually increased in recent months, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases said Monday. The variant, known as C.1.2., was flagged last week by the KwaZulu-Natal Research and Innovation and Sequencing Platform in a preprint study that has yet to be peer reviewed. While the majority of South Africa's coronavirus cases are currently caused by the Delta variant -- first detected in India -- C.1.2. caught scientists' attention because its mutation is almost twice as fast as observed in other global variants. Its frequency remains relatively low, however, and it has so far been detected in less than three percent of genomes sequenced since it was first picked up in May -- although this has increased from 0.2 to two percent last month.