Head of the West Africa Center for Cell Biology and Infectious Pathogens, WACCBIP, of the University of Ghana, Professor Gordon Awendar has disclosed that the deadly Indian variant of COVID-19 is in Ghana. He said the variant has been confirmed alongside other forty-five variants in the country.
Speaking on Accra based Joy Prime, he said: “Overall we have about 45 or 46 different variants. The trend shows that all these normally come from travellers. Now that the Delta (Indian Variant) is taking over, it’s just a matter of time before it will come here in large quantities. We have a few here but it’s going to increase”.
The Indian strain has caused huge spikes in India, and a serious increase in cases in the UK despite the fact that large sections of the population in those countries are vaccinated.
Prof. Awendar also disclosed that the Astrazeneca and the Sputnik V vaccines are not effective against the strain.
“Now we have to be looking at the right vaccines. All this while, we’ve been fixed on AstraZeneca and Sputnik V but we have to shift towards more of Pfizer and others which have a better chance of protecting against this variant. Because the future is, we are going towards these aggressive variants”, he stressed.