South Sudan on alert as yet another deadly COVID-19 variant emerges

JUBA — South Sudan Vice President for Service Cluster who doubled as chairperson for National COVID-19 Taskforce, Hussein Abdelbagi Akol said the COVID-19 Taskforce is monitoring emerging evidence on the new Omicron variant of COVID-19 and its implication.

The new mutation, which is potentially more transmissible, was first discovered in South African on 24th November and has since been detected in Southern African, Hong Kong, and Belgium.

South Sudan National COVID-19 Taskforce chair, Abdelbagi Akol said, the country is on alert to combat the variant.

“The National Taskforce will continue to monitor the situation, and work clearly with World Health Organization, (WHO) Center for Disease Control (CDC) and CDC-African to combat the variant,” Abdelbagi said in a statement read on state-owned radio on Monday.

Abdelbagi said the COVID-19 Taskforce is on alert to tackle any situation and advise the public to continue taking all precautionary measures.

“We are calling upon our citizens to observe strict measures such as continue wearing of face mask, hands washing and avoidance of handshake and exercise of physically distancing, keeping away from crowded areas and getting vaccinated,” he said.

“We call upon our people to remain alert, and vigilant because the fight against the pandemic is a collective responsibility, and we must all cooperate, and work together to prevent new resurgent of the virus,” he said.

He disclosed that the national update shall be issued timely to educate the public on new development as well as policies and measures to be enforced.