Big leap in KZN Covid-19 cases raises concerns

The province went from 167 new cases of the illness last Monday to 537 by last Wednesday and finished the week with 338 new patients

THE number of new Covid-19 cases doubled and then tripled in Kwazulu-natal during the past week.

The province went from 167 new Covid-19 cases last Monday to 537 new cases last Wednesday and finished the week on Sunday with 338 new cases.

The province recorded 167, 159, 537, 421, 394, 372 and 338 new Covid-19 cases over seven days – a total of 2 388 new cases.

KZN Health head of department Dr Sandile Tshabalala said they were worried about the figures last Wednesday and Thursday because they reached 500plus cases and prior to that the average was 155 cases.

Tshabalala said that on Thursday they had 421 new cases which made their figures “jump quite a bit”.

“We are busy monitoring if we are at a time where we will say we are in the third wave. That will help us when we use what we call the 7-day average, but any new Covid-19 cases worry us because they have a negative impact in terms of that person who has been infected and that person’s contacts,” Tshabalala said.

Further, he said they found a number of schools that had pupils who tested positive for Covid-19 in the umgungundlovu District. He said some of the schools decided that the pupils should leave the schools, which was something the department also encouraged, so that the pupils were taken care of at home.

However, Tshabalala also said the department’s teams should continue doing contact tracing because, since the positive cases, they have reactivated their teams to ensure the virus did not spread.

“We encourage contact tracing and check-ups in other schools so that we find the pupils sooner,” Tshabalala said. “We also encourage that when these children return home, they are watched and they don’t get close to the elderly.”

According to the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), South Africa recorded a total of 1 747 082 Covid-19 cases and 1 606 581 recoveries over the weekend. There were also 7 657 new cases recorded. The country recorded 57 765 Covid-19 related deaths.

The NICD said a total of 1 773 417 vaccines had been administered in the country.

According to a statement Aspen issued yesterday, the company was “extremely disappointed” to learn over the past weekend that specific batches of the Johnson and Johnson (J&J) Covid19 vaccine manufactured at its Gqeberha production site and designated for the South African market have to be destroyed. This was due to the Good Manufacturing Practice risk of isolated material in the drug substance supplied to Aspen by J&J from their contract manufacturing partner in the US, Emergent.

Aspen said the setback could negatively impact the vaccine roll-out across SA and Africa.

However, to mitigate the potential risk to vaccine access and in substitution of the volumes lost, the following actions were undertaken:

– Within days, J&J would provide 300 000 doses of the vaccine for South African teachers.

– Within a week, Aspen is expected to release J&J vaccines manufactured from a drug substance that has not been impacted by the Emergent contamination.

– Over the next few weeks, J&J would be delivering substantial quantities of compliant finished vaccines to SA to replace the lost stock and ensuring the momentum in the South African vaccine initiative was maintained.

Aspen has further doses of the vaccine in production that would become available in July.

These J&J vaccines released by Aspen would support the vaccination programmes here and elsewhere in Africa.