Covid-19 is back in Côte d’Ivoire, with around twenty cases recorded on Friday by health authorities among pilgrims returning from Mecca. But no deaths have been recorded, and the Ministry of Health and epidemiologists want to be reassuring, while alarmist and false speeches circulate on social networks.
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With our correspondent in Abidjan, Marine Jeannin
Out of 619 pilgrims returning from Saudi Arabia, 25 cases of Covid-19 were detected by the control system put in place by the health authorities at Félix Houphouët-Boigny airport, i.e. 4% of positive cases. A rate below the disease control threshold, specified the Ministry of Health…
But for several days, rumors have been circulating on Ivorian social networks of an epidemic of the “XBB” variant, supposed to be five times more dangerous than the Delta variant, with a higher mortality rate.
False information, assures Professor Yahaya Karamoko, virologist at Nangui Abrogoua University. It is probably rather the KP.2 subvariant, already present in the United States since March and in Europe and Asia since May. A derivative of the JN.1 sub-variant, which is losing speed. The KP.2 sub-variant does not present higher mortality than its successors, estimates Professor Karamoko, for whom the current resurgence is “ light and under control “.
The Ivorian Ministry of Health recommends screening in the event of symptoms, compliance with barrier measures for the sick and encourages people at risk to get vaccinated.