JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – A senior South African health official said he had been told on Friday that the World Health Organisation (WHO) would designate the new COVID-19 variant detected in South Africa as a variant “of concern”.
“We are busy trying to get some information behind the scenes about what was discussed at the WHO meeting today. Earlier in the day I just got a message to say that they were going to promote this variant to a ‘variant of concern’,” Nicholas Crisp, acting director general in the health department, told a media briefing.
He did not say who had sent the message.
(Reporting by Alexander Winning and Wendell Roelf; writing by Olivia Kumwenda-Mtambo; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
