Ruthless South Africa Variant Hits Namibia

Namibia COVID: 75,766 Cases and 1,179 Deaths updated 23 June 2021. / Worldometer Over 75,766 cases and 1,179 deaths had been recorded in Nam...

Namibia COVID: 75,766 Cases and 1,179 Deaths updated 23 June 2021. / Worldometer

Over 75,766 cases and 1,179 deaths had been recorded in Namibia, which is a worse case in the country with a 2.495 million population. 

Last week, Namibia reported an averaged of 2,934 doses being administered each day. COVID-19 infections are increasing in Namibia, with 1,312 new infections reported each passing day. That’s 94% of the peak — the highest daily average reported since June 21. According to the World Health Organization statistics among the group of 100,000 people, 368 are infected in Namibia.

South African variant

The B.1.351 variant of the coronavirus, first found in South Africa, is spreading in 23 African countries like a wildfire, the World Health Organisation (WHO) confirmed this; the Regional Virologist, Dr. Nicksy Gumede-Moeletsi, noted that the new strain presented some symptoms such as fever, cough, headache, and breathing difficulty, back pains, abdominal pains and stomach cramps among others regular signs and symptoms similar to the original COVID-19.

The new coronavirus variant from South Africa poses threat to Namibian young populations. Frankly, speaking Windhoek, and other parts of the country already reeling from the variant's devastating blow. B.1.351 (BETA) is a serious threat that is more easily transmissible, potentially deadlier, and particularly dangerous for young people than the Alpha variant which wreaks havoc on older groups and the country was far better at managing the first wave. 

Namibia was praised by the international community for containing the virus. Now, What went wrong?

WHO also listed the affected Africa countries such as Kenya, Cameroon, Cote D’ ívoire, Malawi, Mauritius, Togo, Botswana, Comoros, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Angola, Ghana, South Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Equatorial Guinea, Seychelles, and Tanzania.

What is the South Africa variant?

The South African variant, also known as 501.V2 or B.1.351, has some significant characteristics that experts are busy studying. All viruses, including the Alpha virus that caused the first wave of Covid-19, constantly do mutate into new versions or variants. This genetic morphing happens when the coronavirus produces new copies of itself to thrive, survive, and spreading within the host. Improper administering of vaccines could make the viruses change forms into resistant variants that are more infectious life-threatening to the host - humans. 

Is it more dangerous?

Some of the mutations involve the virus's spike protein - the virus' part that gains entry into human cells. Scientists are concerned about these particular mutations. The South African variant appears to be contagious or easy to spread and can dodge the immune system and this may erode the efficacy of coronavirus vaccines.  A real-world data study in Israel found that even people who had been fully vaccinated against Covid still caught the South Africa variant because the virus has the capability to surmount the immune defenses generated by the vaccines. 

Do vaccines work against the South Africa variant?

As with the original version, the risk is low to the young population only problematic for people who are elderly or have significant underlying health conditions. But now the concern is about the new variants that spread more readily to young people and vaccines may not work quite well against it.

Trials of Novavax, Janssen, and the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines in South Africa, where B.1.351 is spreading, suggest that the variant can escape some immunity defenses and the dose may not stop infections. Results from Moderna suggest its shot is still effective against the South Africa variant, although the immune response may not be as strong or guaranteeing a prolonged immunity.

How far has it spread?

It is already forming a dominant strain in neighboring countries including Namibia. At least 20 other African countries including Nigeria, Ghana, and Botswana, that directly engaging in daily business activities with South Africa have also shared the pathological spoil of variant. In the UK, 533 cases of the variant have been found, originally brought in by people who have recently visited South Africa. Health workers in Britain have managed to contain the source and government further placed South Africa under Red-list countries and Namibia has been also added to the list due to the number of new cases doubling every day.   

What is Namibia doing about the spread?

 According to Dr Emmanuel Nepolo, a research scientist at the University of Namibia says the risk of reinfection with the Delta variant is possible, the variant has scientifically and officially been confirmed to be present in Namibia as of Monday 5 July 2021. Therefore, it is important to know most Covid-19 vaccines do not provide absolute immunity due to the complexity. The Unam Molecular Diagnostic Laboratory, under the leadership of Nepolo, worked around the clock to establish the presence of the Delta variant in Namibia. 

Nepolo stressed that what Namibians need to know is that the Delta variant is 97% more transmissible compared to other variants, including the Beta variant.  Nepolo assured that through genomic surveillance, Unam will continue to provide evidence on whether the Delta variant is widely spread within the entire country, establish whether this variant is responsible for most reported Covid-19-related deaths and monitor the evolution of other new coronavirus variants of concern in Namibia. The German Institute of Public Health and the Robert Koch Institute classifies Namibia as high risk and discourage its citizens from traveling to an area that has a community transmission of volatile organic compounds (VOCs).

Movement: Although, the movement of people and the shipment of goods from a virus-hit neighboring country, Southern Africa and other infectious epicenters such as India are still not well managed. Earlier on Namibia received praise from other governments and the World Health Organization for the leadership it demonstrated in containing the first wave of COVID-19 pandemic. Since the confirmation of the 1st case of COVID-19 on 13 March 2020, Namibia has implemented a robust response aimed at limiting and containing the spread of the virus.  

This response includes the declaration of a State of Emergency. The government's effort is now focused on mass testing, mass vaccination campaigns, and enforcing partial lockdowns. Could this measure prevent the spread of the South African variant into the country? NO!  

Health minister Kalumbi Shangula tours the mobile field hospital at the Hosea Kutako Airport. 

The lockdowns, wearing masks, sanitizing, and social distancing alone are not a solution in combating the most deadly variant that engulfing the nation; as long as there are many loopholes exist at country entry points where contaminated frozen goods like (chickens and other refrigerated cargoes) are passing through from South Africa, without any strict disinfection process or decontamination procedures. The new wave of new variants from R.S.A and other hotspots could have found its way wide open into Namibia, in this kind of mode of transmission.  

This is a work and duty of the national epidemiological department with the Ministry of Health and Social Services (MoHSS). The emergence and spread of deadly variants is a serious threat to national wellbeing and public health. Therefore, it is vital that cross-border transmission response systems are constantly prepared for fast, rigorous, timely, and efficient response.

Of course, the Ministry of Health and Social Services is trying its level best to make sure all travelers, like truck drivers and sailors from red-listed countries like South Africa, are frequently being tested against COVID-19 at borders posts before entering the country. But, the virus has several modes of transmission: I should draw the line here that there is no decontamination measure put in place to disinfect or incubate materials that entering the country's ports and could possibly converge the virus into Namibia. 

The virus that causes COVID-19 can land on surfaces. It’s possible for people to become infected if they touch those surfaces or items and then touch their nose, mouth, or eyes. In most situations, the risk of infection from touching a surface is not well understood. The most reliable way to prevent infection from surfaces is to regularly wash hands or use hand sanitizer. So, what about the contaminated package of frozen chicken?

The coronavirus could possibly be transmitted on frozen packages of food (frozen goods from South African suppliers and transported to Namibian retailers). We know that the virus can persist and survive in favorable conditions that are found in those cold and frozen environments. The frozen package can be contaminated if someone who probably handled them during packaging might have had the virus.

You can't detect viruses inside the contaminated packages at Ariamsvlei, or Noordoewer with the naked eyes or using thermometers, at least you need advanced instruments and most often a lab sample may be required to establish a conclusion.  To save the cost of buying these expensive portable virus detection toolkit in order to screen the whole consignment, the disinfection strategy proves to work effectively, if all frozen packages hauled into special incubation centers for a certain period of time before dispatched to the consumer market, this will allow proper disinfection process and inspection to be carried out effectively.

South Africa is Namibia’s main trading partner in livestock, processed food, and meat products due to the two countries’ economic integration and geographic location. This has led to an increased trading volume daily.  Tackling the cross-border emerging infectious diseases like COVID-19 is a big challenge not only to Namibia but even to developed countries. The country has no capacity to handle that, but this doesn't permit us to put our hands in the air while watching the deadly viral strains entering Namibia!

The new variant spreading in Namibia, mainly in major cities like Windhoek, Walvis Bay that have wider exposure to foreign interactions especially South Africa. The coronavirus would likely become the dominant strain in urban areas, but, we fear that the third wave might be spread evenly to the countryside and reaching far-flung villages. Over 86,649 COVID-19 cases recorded in Namibia, of which 57,716 people recovered and 1,445 died from the scourge virus. 

Namibia founding President, Cde Sam Nujoma received his Covid-19 jab in Ongwediva Medipark.

Over 60% of cases in Namibia, consist of this new COVID-19 variant. The researchers also found that COVID-19 cases in Windhoek are doubling every week, most likely as a result of the fast-spreading variant from neighboring South Africa. Young people may be particularly susceptible to a new variant infection for two reasons: 

• They're more likely to be socially active 
• They're less likely to seek medical attention earlier than elders.

Why Vaccinated people still contracting the COVID-19?

So far, over 121,000 doses have been given and 19,079 % of people are fully vaccinated in Namibia.  About 21.1% of the world population has received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. In total, 2.5 billion doses have been administered globally. Emerging researches suggest that vaccine dose doesn't hold up well against new variants as compared to other coronavirus strains. 

The mRNA vaccines injected into human bodies could somehow create immunity complications or further opening a window of vulnerability to COVID-19, and other medical side effects experienced among the vaccinated people whose immune system becomes even weaker than before; the foreign substance may erode entirely the normal process of the innate immune response in a human body that acts as the first line of the natural defense system. 

The failure of the World Health Organization

Geert Vanden Bossche, is a Belgian virologist with a Ph.D. degree in Virology from the University of Hohenheim, Germany. Geert and other groups of medical scientists penned an open letter to the World Health Organization (WHO) petitioning against the mass vaccination campaigns to stop, stating that the large-scale Covid-19 vaccination currently underway around the world should cease before they produce the catastrophic strain of more deadly variants of the COVID-19 and increase the risk for younger people who were much even safer to Alpha variant. 

Take this as an example in the same way antibiotics creates resistant bacteria. Antibiotic resistance occurs when the bacteria (microorganism) mutated itself to survive the drugs designed to kill these microscopic organisms, after mutating they pass on the traits to their offspring, leading to a fully resistant generation. Extend this understanding to COVID-19 vaccines and, in simple theory, it should make good sense to you. 

In fact, viruses do mutate all the time just like bacteria and these mutations tend to dominate the treatment and vaccines designed against them.  The worse scenario is that many covid-19 vaccines are still in the primary trial stage, but yet people are being forced to take these weak vaccines that making viruses become more resistant and create copies of new variants. 

WHO and CDC said the claims in the open letter are false and that vaccination is urgently needed to control the virus through mass vaccination campaigns. These claims in the open letter are harder to refute when they are shared by credible people of authority, such as doctors, scientists, and medical experts who have extensive years in the fields, where they are specialized. 

WHO and CDC are multinational agencies led by individuals who share their own interests and elevated to positions and mostly not based on medical expertise, but due to some roles, ties they served before such as political and diplomatic experiences. Of, course major decision-makers are laymen when it comes to medicines but they do make important decisions that affect health matters. 

Some of the choices the international health body took are not in the best interest of ordinary people.  The world has seen the failure of the World Health Organization in detecting and handling the COVID-19 at the beginning.  These are the same organizations that were downplaying the danger of coronavirus at the early onset when the virus was first discovered in Wuhan, China. 

Instead of taking a robust approach in containing it within Wuhan, they were informing people that the virus is not life-threatening and people shouldn't panic. WHO has caused an unnecessary delay before declaring the COVID-19 a global pandemic because some of the officials were plating a coverup story for the communist party of China, that could be blamed for such a problem.

Understand the immunocompromisation 

Think of your immune system as a strong army to protect you from enemies both foreign (viruses, fungi, and microbial). But when you’re immunocompromised, your immune system’s defense is low, affecting its ability to fight off infections and other forms of invasions. The state of compromise can be either permanent or temporary. 

When a human's immune system exposed to artificial substrates or substances like those pre-mature vaccinations that being roll out worldwide of which many are in the trial stage and of course don't guarantee any protection for humans let alone interfere with the natural body defense mechanism, and become even vulnerable to COVID-19, which was designed to combat at the first place. 

It is not only cancer treatment that could contribute to medical complications, vaccines (immunization if administered poorly) can compromise your immune systems too, especially the genetics that play a significant role in immune response, and fight off disease. 

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) to get full immunity against COVID-19 a person requires to receive multiple vaccinations or even mixing different vaccines. Vaccinating people with both the Oxford–AstraZeneca, and Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines produce a potent immune response against the virus SARS-CoV-2, once a person receives consequently injections as according to the researchers who conducted a study in Spain.  

Despite those vaccines in the trials: To be regarded fully inoculated against the virus, you need to get vaccinated not once but even three times. On other hand, developing countries like Namibia are struggling to secure vaccine doses enough to meet the first round campaign and still facing a limited supply of vaccines. In such a desperate situation of medical needs, this can lead to total chaos! 

2 doses for a single jab in the first round is not sufficient to ensure immunity for the person from COVID-19. This would make a vaccinated person more susceptible to the virus infection and becomes a host that breeding deadly variants. The number of doses needed over and over depends on which vaccine you receive. To get the most protection:

• Two Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine doses should be given 3 weeks (21 days) apart.
• Two Moderna vaccine doses should be given 1 month (28 days) apart.
• Johnson & Johnsons Jansen (J&J/Janssen) COVID-19 vaccine requires only one dose.
• Sinovac (Chinese vaccine) 2 doses (0.5 ml) should be given in 2–4 weeks between the first and second dose. 

If you receive a vaccine that requires two doses, you should get your second shot as close to the recommended interval as possible. However, your second dose may be given up to 6 weeks (42 days) after the first dose, if necessary.

There are several health conditions that can cause a person to be immunocompromised, including AIDS, cancer, diabetes, malnutrition, certain genetic disorders, some medications and treatments like some anticancer drugs, radiation therapy, stem cell, or organ transplant can also make a person immunosuppressed. After the immune-compromised with mRNA vaccines, the poor person can't able to fight infections as normal for a certain period. 

The worse case is when a vaccinated person gets the COVID-19 and can't able to get the lid off the virus that will result to be a host for developing variants or rather terrifying endemic strains which are more virulent and deadlier than the normal COVID-19 infection. If these asymptomatic people multiplying in numbers in the community without understanding the underlying medical percussor, they are absolutely vectors of infection. Take note that it is better to contract the virus from an unvaccinated person because you are 99.99% to recover and survive, but the big problem is only when you contracted a virus (variant) from a vaccinated individual. 

Now, ask for yourself these questions: Why Namibian President, Hage Geingob , First Lady Monica Geingos, and the Speaker of National Assembly Peter Katjavivi tested positive for COVID-19 in the very first week receiving their COVID-19 vaccination? Why the President has to delay taking another jab? Why the infection/death rate is more common among vaccinated people in Namibia? Why compel the country to a trial so-called Mass Vaccination? Why you still wearing a mask after being vaccinated as if the dose you received doesn't provide immunity?  Is the COVID-19 vaccine useful?