Scientists in South Africa said they had detected a new variant of COVID-19 with a large number of mutations.
Since the beginning of the month, the number of daily infections in Africa's hardest-hit country has increased tenfold.
"Unfortunately we have found a new variant which is a reason for concern in South Africa," de Oliveira said.
He hopes that the World Health Organization will give the variant a Greek name on Friday.
He said that it was causing a resurgence of infections.
Travelers from South Africa have been found in Hong Kong and Botswana with the variant.
The WHO is closely monitoring the reported variant and is expected to convene a technical meeting on Friday to determine if it should be designated a variant of interest or concern.
The WHO said that the variant has a large number of genes that need to be studied.
A major threat.
The variant is a serious threat to the health of South Africa, according to the Minister.
The country's daily number of infections increased to 1,200 on Wednesday from 106 earlier in the month.
The fourth wave was predicted to hit South Africa around the middle of December, thanks to travel ahead of the festive season.
TheNICD said 22 positive cases of the B. 1.1.529 variant have been recorded in the country.
The number of detected cases and percentage testing positive are increasing quickly in three of the country's provinces, including the economic hub of Johannesburg and the capital of the other province.
The NICD said that a cluster outbreak was recently identified at a higher education institute.
The Delta variant of the virus was originally detected in India, but last year South Africa also detected the Beta variant.
The country has the highest number of cases in Africa with 2.95 million, of which 89,657 have been fatal.
There are ten different genes.
The new variant has at least 10 changes compared to two for Delta or three forBeta.
Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO's technical lead on COVID-19, said at a virtual press briefing that the concern is that when you have so many mutations, it can have an impact on how the virus behaves.
It will take a few weeks for us to understand what impact this variant has on any potential vaccines.
One of the scientists from South Africa said that neutralizing the variant is complicated by the number of genes it contains.
She said that the variant contains a lot of different genes that they are not familiar with.
The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will meet South African experts to discuss the variant.
John Nkengasong, head of the Africa CDC, said at a news conference on Thursday that some of the variant that are out there are of no consequence to the epidemic.
After a slow start to South Africa's vaccination campaign, around 41 percent of adults have received at least a single dose, while 35 percent are fully vaccineed. The continental average of 6.6 percent of people beingvaccinated is far above those numbers.
South Africa wants to inoculate 70 percent of its population.
Nicholas Crisp, the health ministry director, said that South Africa has deferred taking delivery of more ordered doses because they are getting vaccines in faster than they are using.
Agence France-Presse.
