South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa is on Tuesday scheduled to convene a meeting of the National Coronavirus Command Council to discuss a new variant detected in the country this week.
The new Covid sub-variant, known as XBB.1.5, has also been recorded in the US and UK.
It is an offshoot of the globally-dominant Omicron Covid variant and is highly transmissible.
President Ramaphosa confirmed Tuesday’s meeting to local journalists and urged South Africans not to panic.
South Africa recorded over three million Covid-19 infections at the height of the pandemic – the highest number of confirmed cases by any African country. –
