Coronavirus: Expert says screening at airports best protection against South African variant

Amid concern over the South African variant of the coronavirus, advisory committee member Petros Karayiannis said on Tuesday that screening at the airports was the best way to keep it out.

The University of Nicosia professor of microbiology and molecular virology told the Cyprus News Agency said that although there are no air links between Cyprus and South Africa, passengers with the virus could travel here through third airports. Moreover, it could be brought to Cyprus from European countries where it has spread.

The South African variant, like the new UK variant, contains a mutation known as N501Y which is believed to make the virus more contagious than older variants. The South African variant also contains other mutations of concern, including E484K and K417N. These two mutations are thought to explain why the South African variant appears to be better able to evade neutralising antibody responses by the body.

“We have heard that it has been detected in Thesaloniki. At the moment it is not clear how the priest was infected. It is a question of tracing to see how the virus entered Greece and who has been infected,” he said.

Karayiannis said screening at the airports was crucial.

“The only protective measure is what is being done at the airports of Cyprus now with close monitoring, testing arrivals, quarantining those that must be quarantined, so as to avoid importing the virus to the island,” he added.

Asked whether the South African variant was more deadly, Karayiannis said that this has yet to be determined, but this does not appear to be the case.

And, replying to another question, he said it was not known how widespread the UK variant was in Cyprus. “From the results that were announced in December, there was only one case in the 25 analysed, so at the time the transmission was restricted,” he said.

Karayiannis said that the number of new cases in Cyprus has stabilized at around the 100 mark. “We hope that we will see a further drop. If we were not carrying out so many tests a day we may have fallen to double digits, but with 25,000 tests being carried out daily in recent days, it is to be expected that we would detect more cases.”

He stressed the need for health protocols to be adhered to at all businesses resuming operation as well as compliance with the measures more generally.

“The lockdown measures have delivered. We have managed to reduce the number of cases from 900 to approximately 100. This took six to seven weeks with the two phases of the restrictions. I expect them to fall further in the next few days and if there is a problem we will see it in two or three weeks.

“What is also encouraging is that hospital admissions have fallen and there is also a small drop in the ICUs,” he added.