Experiencing An Increase In Infection Cases, Minister Of Health Says South Africa May Enter The Fifth Wave Of COVID-19

Illustration of COVID-19 vaccination in Africa. (Wikimedia Commons/Davyimage)

JAKARTA - South Africa may enter its fifth wave of COVID-19 infections earlier than expected, after a sustained increase in infections over the past 14 days, Health Minister Joe Phaahla said on Friday.

"What has remained stable is hospital admissions including the ICU (intensive care unit), not a very dramatic change," Phaahla told a news conference.

"There has also been an increase in deaths, not so dramatic from low bases."

He further said that at this stage the health authorities had not been alerted to a new variant, apart from the dominant change in circulation, Omicron.

South Africa has recorded the most COVID infections and deaths in Africa to date, with more than 3.7 million confirmed cases and over 100,000 deaths during the pandemic.

On Thursday, the WHO Africa office marked South Africa's increase in COVID infections as the main driver of the increase in infections on the African continent.

"This week new cases and deaths of COVID-19 on the continent increased for the first time, after a decline of more than two months for cases and one month for deaths," Benido Impouma, WHO Africa director of communicable and non-communicable diseases told an online news conference.

Impouma said there was no evidence yet to suggest the increase in cases was linked to the new sub-lineage or variant of the new coronavirus.

Meanwhile, Helen Rees, executive director of the University of the Witwatersrand Institute for Reproductive Health and HIV in Johannesburg, said at the same press conference, an increasing share of South African COVID cases are the BA.4 and BA.5 sub-lineages of the Omicron variant.

But he said the country had so far not seen a major increase in deaths or intensive care admissions.