The South African coronavirus variant is already in The Gambia according to the WHO regional director for Africa.

Dr Matshidiso Moeti said genomic sequencing has now found the South African new variant in three other countries: Botswana, Gambia and Zambia.

“The importance of a robust genomics surveillance system cannot be overemphasised,” she said.

Minister of Health Dr Ahmadou Samateh told Parliament yesterday that “we can sequence to know the various variants of Covid-19 because there are UK variants and South Africa variants and possibly there are others that are coming up.”

He said testing is now free in “order to encourage many people” to be tested for the virus. 

The new South African variant is highly contagious which is a problem because tougher restrictions on society may be needed to control the spread.

South Africa is one of the world’s hardest-hit countries as a highly infectious variant of the virus now dominates the number of new cases and hospitals struggle. 

South Africa has more than 1.2 million cases including 35,000 deaths.