For the past few weeks

the Covid-19 figures have experienced a resurgence in the world and particularly in Africa.

The number of confirmed cases on the continent stands at just under 2.5 million, the African Center for Disease Control and Prevention announced the day before yesterday.

South Africa, Morocco, Egypt and Ethiopia are currently the African countries most affected by the pandemic in terms of numbers.

 it must be agreed that the clusters and the second waves on the continent, far from reaching the cases observed in France, Belgium or Italy, do indeed exist and that the coronavirus has rebounded in several African countries.

The causes which explain that the coronavirus has spread further: the relaxation of barrier measures, the denial and the lack of tests to have a precise idea of ​​the cases, and finally the number of asymptomatic cases, that is to say the infected who do not develop the disease.

Thus

Today, with the elections in Guinea and Côte d'Ivoire, the meetings which drew crowds were conducive to contamination, especially since during these raids, the wearing of masks was not always recommended and friction was the rule.

In addition, the lifting of curfews and other quarantines which had cut the chain of contamination, this lifting has further encouraged relaxation in bars, pubs and markets ...

turn of the sanitary and security screw

Between the lack of resources and the absence of stricter measures, the Malian authorities are had no choice but to be firm as the number of Covid-19 cases has been increasing for several weeks.

So last Friday, the ax fell

Le Point Afrique

closure of schools, bars, restaurants and some shops until January 10.

And to go further, Mali has decided on a

for six months and a state of emergency for ten days.

said the government spokesman.

Le Point Afrique

 today, almost nine months after the start of the pandemic, Mali has 6,049 cases, including 211 fatalities, for a population of approximately 20 million inhabitants.

And

affirms the Ministry of Health.

a new variant of SARS-CoV-2 has indeed been identified in South Africa

and seems to be spreading at an unprecedented speed.

South African researchers were the first to find out.

They are the ones who alerted their counterparts around the world, leading to the discovery of a variant close to that spotted in the United Kingdom in particular.

This new variant of SARS-CoV-2 has a name

: "501.V2"

mid-November, this '501.V2' variant

represented 90% of the genomes sequenced by South African scientists.

An unprecedented proportion.

Which suggests that this variant propagates faster than the others.

Le Monde Afrique

this new variant reduce the effectiveness of vaccines that are on the market

?

This mutation is worrying because it affects an element used by antibodies to neutralize the virus, but it should be noted that the vaccines developed produce an immune response to broad spectrum.

We believe that a simple mutation is unlikely to call into question the response to the vaccine, but we will not know until after laboratory tests have been carried out.