Omicron, the latest SARS-Cov-2 variant, continues to cause panic across the world. The new variant has now been reported in more than 37 countries and more will be added to this list in the weeks ahead.
As of Tuesday, last week, more than 33 countries had responded with travel restrictions, new quarantine requirements and vaccine booster shots. In the global scheme of collective measures necessary to contain the spread of the Omicron variant, these actions, especially banning travel and isolating African countries, are foolish at best.
It is plausible that we have community spread of the Omicron variant already. Travel restrictions and all are like locking the stable after the horse has bolted. Clearly, nearly two years into the Covid-19 pandemic we have learnt precious little. It is highly likely that the Omicron variant had been spreading for at least one month before November.
The emergence of new and perhaps more virulent variants of SARS-Cov-2 is something we should get used to, unsettling as it is. With less than 50 per cent of the global population vaccinated, the burden of Covid-19 will persist. However, the fact that only 7.5 per cent of Africa’s population has been vaccinated increases inordinately, the risk of emergence of new variants on the continent.
Health officials in Europe, North America, Israel and Japan are actively encouraging all adults to get a top-up jab of vaccine. But the emergence of the Omicron variant has energised the moral debate over booster shots when a majority in the developing world are yet to receive even one vaccine dose.
As wealthy nations race to offer booster jabs to contain Omicron, global vaccine inequity will widen. Unequal access to vaccines has contributed to the emergence and global spread of the Omicron variant.
Scientists are suggesting a synergistic relationship between Covid-19 and HIV. There is evidence that individuals with weakened immune systems arising from uncontrolled HIV experience prolonged Covid-19 infections, lasting several weeks or even months.
On average healthy individuals take about two weeks to wear off a Covid-19 infection. Moreover, individuals with advanced or uncontrolled HIV infection are about two to four times more likely to die of Covid-19.
Recent research shows that prolonged infection could explain the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern. Researchers in South Africa have shown that repeated genomic sequencing in immunocompromised patients revealed significant rapid multistage evolutionary changes or mutations in SARS-CoV-2 like those observed in the alpha, beta and delta variants.
The plausible link between the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants and HIV is worrying because 30 per cent of an estimated 25 million people living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa in 2020 were not getting effective antiretroviral treatment.
Most of these individuals also need Covid-19 vaccines. However, the interaction between HIV and Covid-19 must not stir fresh stigmatisation of people living with HIV.
The synergistic relationship between HIV and SARS-CoV-2 demands that the two diseases be tackled together. Africa must ramp up Covid-19 vaccination and step up the distribution of antiretrovirals among those living with HIV.
Views expressed are the writer’s
