Tulio de Oliveira
@Tuliodna
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Professor of medical research leading global genomics surveillance. Director CERI and KRISP, SA and Deputy Director GSU, Sanger Institute, UK. Tweets my own.
Joined November 2011
Busy day on B.1.1.529 - a variant of great concern - The world should provide support to South Africa and Africa and not discriminate or isolate it! By protecting and supporting it, we will protect the world! A plea for billionaires and financial institutions. 1/8 tweets.
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This is the best news of the week! ‘Gamechanger’ HIV prevention drug to be made available cheaply in 120 countries! A twice year injection that showed 100% success in protecting against HIV infection!
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Today, I spent a big part of my day talking to genomic and biotech companies as soon we will run out of reagents as airplanes are not flying to South Africa! It will be 'evil' if we can not answer the questions that the world needs about #Omicron due to the travel ban!.
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I do hope it is time to take a global approach for a global pandemic and stop the nationalism and hatred. It is not the scientists or nations fault if viruses move from animals to humans or if they evolve. Global solidarity for a global problem.
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I have no idea why people can not realize why pathogen outbreaks are happening more often: 1 - climate change and destruction of environment, 2 - globalization and movement of people, animals and goods, 3 - Weak public health response networks. In one word = human selfishness.
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I would like to plea to all billionaires in this world @elonmusk @BillGates @JeffBezos @DrPatSoonShiong @WarrenBuffett to support Africa & South Africa financially to control and extinguish variants! By protecting its poor and oppressed population we will protect the world.
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This new variant, B.1.1.529 seems to spread very quick! In less than 2 weeks now dominates all infections following a devastating Delta wave in South Africa (Blue new variant, now at 75% of last genomes and soon to reach 100%)
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Summary of BA.4 & BA.5 in South Africa.- 100% of infections.- Fuelling 5th wave.- Low testing & high positivity ratio.- Increasing number of hospitalizations, however still much lower than in previous waves.- SA may guide the world on the future of the pandemic.
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I also want to plea to financial organizations @WorldBank @IMFNews @USAID @PEPFAR @GlobalFund to support the poor population and governments in South Africa and Africa to control and extinguish variants! By protecting its poor and oppressed population we will protect the world.
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South African scientific dream team, again, helping the world with new knowledge to guide the fight to the pandemic! . Unvaccinated + Omicron = Immunity to Omicron only. Vaccinated + Omicron = Immunity to Omicron and other variants!.
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This new variant is really worrisome at the mutational level. South Africa and Africa will need support (financially, public health, scientific) to control it so it does not spread in the world. Our poor and deprived population can not be in lockdown without financial support.
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We are working around the clock to understand effects on 1) Transmissibility, 2) vaccines, 3) Re-infection, disease severity, and diagnostics. We do have funding for science, but South Africa and Africa need financial help to support their deprived population and health system.
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Summary of what we know about Omicron BA.4 & BA.5:.- Suggesting a discrete reservoir, such as chronic human infections and/or animal reservoirs.- BA.4 and BA.5 have a growth advantage over BA.2.- Escape BA.1 infection & potential new wave.
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We have been very transparent with scientific information. We identified, made data public, and raised the alarm as the infections are just increasing. We did this to protect our country and the world in spite of potentially suffering massive discrimination.
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Omicron detected in the USA a week before South Africa? However, a report from US CDC on wastewatter was only released today (2 months late). The US CDC is welcome to come to SA for training & capacity building on rapid and accurate genomics surveillance.
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New Omicron BA.4 & BA.5 detected in South Africa, Botswana, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, and U.K. Early indications that these new sublineages are increasing as a share of genomically confirmed cases in SA. No cause for alarm as no major spike in cases, admissions or deaths in SA
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Because this variant (B.1.1.529) can be detected by a normal qPCR due to deletion at Spike position 69-70 (like Alpha), it will make it easy for the world to track it. We estimate that 90% of the cases in Gauteng (at least 1000 a day are this variant, due to qPCR proxy testing)
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As expected, Omicron BA.2 takes over in South Africa, close to 100% of the new genomes. What does it mean?
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If the world keeps punishing Africa for the discovery of #Omicron and 'Global Health Scientists' keep taking the data, who will share early data again? Just saying thanks and keep hoarding of vaccine, antiviral, diagnostics, PPEs, funding, etc - Thread on unfair practices 1/4.
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Clear signs of 5th wave in SA, the positivity ratio is as high as the previous 4 waves! Please take care and do not be fooled that a new variant is needed to cause a new wave, Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 are antigenic distinct from BA.1 as other variants were from each other.
#COVID19 UPDATE: 27,424 tests were conducted in the last 24hrs, with 8,524 new cases, which represents a 31.1% positivity rate. Today @HealthZA reports 11 deaths; of which 5 occurred in the past 24–48 hrs. Total fatalities are 100,516 to date: .
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To keep sane these days one needs to laugh. Please see this 20sec video on the travel ban to Southern Africa
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I would like to ask one to be careful on not interpretation of Gauteng data from middle December. The reason is that Gauteng get quite empty and 100,000s of migrant workers and holiday makers leave. Tip, get a look at Beta wave at similar time last year in Gauteng
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Release of 8 new genomes of a new lineage of SARS-CoV-2 with > 100 mutations from South Africa. This is probably the most divergence lineage identified this year. In this thread, we highlight some of the characteristics of the new BA.2.X lineage and epidemiology in SA.
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Racism & discrimination is getting out of hand (La Tribuna, Spain). Specially as over 80% of the initial COVID intro in South Africa came from Europe - Tegally et al Nature Medicine 2021. Is not time to stop the discrimination and face this global epidemic together?
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Very common in the USA but fantastic to see this happening in SA. Donor leaves R50 million to Stellenbosch University in their Will to support financially excluded students to do university degrees
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I traveled to > 100 countries. Amazing places and amazing people. But I have not seen diversity and nature like South Africa. Maybe bias to have been happy here, maybe due to two oceans (Indic and Atlantic), maybe ecosystem & biodiversity. It should be on everyone's buck list.
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Today, new results from our friend @sigallab show that previous infections with Omicron BA.1 will not be sufficient to prevent a second infection with BA.4 and BA.5. This confirm our epi and Evo results suggesting that South Africa may start a new wave of infections with BA.4 & 5
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With all of due respect, there is absolute NO CONCERN of Omicron EG.5 in South Africa or most of the world. It would be a good idea if people STOP to spread alarm when a lineage of Omicron emerge or giving SILLY NAMES, this one is called 'Eris' by a single scientist, that has no.
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Joke of the day number 2: Germany minister do not trust South Africa genomic data. I am sorry if we can produce quicker and higher quality data than your country, so better not to trust as how could SA ever produce good data? Does this sound colonialist thinking?.
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We thank the U.K. for stopping the red list & travel ban. But the correct action would be to cover the costs of the damages to our economy imposed by the travel blockage. The world need an arbitration system to deal with unfair actions that go against scientific transparency.
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Apologies if I sound harsh in my comment about H5N1 public genomic data. It is such an important global question and now it is weeks and weeks of mention of widespread cases in mammals in the USA and data not public. Public data is the cornerstone of public health response.
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Argentina health department confirmed the ‘unknown pathogen’ of the pneumonia cases as Legionela pneumonia bacteria today. Fast action and transparency to fight outbreaks. Genomes should follow in the next few days 🇦🇷
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Really unscientific decision on keeping South Africa on the red list of travel from the U.K. Fact 1 - SA is one of the most vaccinated countries in Africa. Fact 2 - SA has advanced genomics surveillance (more advanced than many of the countries not on the red list) 1/5 tweets.
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Science talks: Europe was responsible for over 80% of the early introductions of COVID-19 in South Africa. Results published at Nature Medicine 2021 (Respected Journal with high impact factor) - Why discriminate Africa now?
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Pre-print Out - Continued Emergence and Evolution of Omicron in South Africa: New BA.4 & BA.5 lineages - - In this thread, we explain the origin, evolution, and epidemiology of the new Omicron lineages causing the increase of infections in SA.
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Swiss health minister Alain Berset said it “no longer made sense to maintain quarantine for people coming from Southern African countries where this variant is circulating because it’s also circulating here.” - Some sense coming from the pragmatic Swiss -
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Absolute nonsense @sajidjavid! Not only South Africa identified the #omicron and alerted the @WHO and the world. But we also helped the U.K to identify the the Alpha variant, see Sir @JeremyFarrar spike book. U.K. should be rewarding SA for scientific quality and transparency. .
@KP24 @sajidjavid @grantshapps And now according to @sajidjavid the UK actually alerted the world to the variant. so how did we get the travel ban then. #lies #uk #travelban #redlist
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The best example of how to screw the pandemic response came from USA. Amazing that the ‘self entitled most advanced’ country on earth has close to 900,000 infections a day, full hospitals, high number of deaths and still an anti vaccine movement in 2022 during the omicron wave….
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Finally, millions of doses of vaccines are arriving in South Africa from the USA. Now South Africa can vaccinate 1 million people every 3-4 days. Light in the end of the tunnel for this awful COVID pandemic.
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After hoarding vaccines, punishing Africa for identifying variants, the European Union refuses to lift patent protections on Covid-19 vaccines! At the same time, they say Merci, Danke, Gracias & Thanks for your 'great scientific support to the world'. Hypocrisy at the best!.
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On the non discrimination & support for Africa financially on my tweets I do mention that we do NOT need extra funding to our science but to support poor people & health care system as they are the ones that suffer the most when loose jobs from travel bans or have to isolate!.
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Omicron, BA.1, and BA.2 - We need to follow them closely. One has an S-gene drop out the other not. Genomics surveillance and qPCR are essential to control it as it spreads widelyl.
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WHO says the new Omicron subvariant BA.2 is not more severe:.- There’s no evidence of a difference in severity between BA.2 & BA.1 (both are Omicron!).- BA.2 is more transmissible than BA.1 but the gap is smaller than between Omicron and Delta. - Vaccines are equally effective.
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BA.4 & BA.5 Recent Developments: .- Wave of infections in SA has peaked with, so far, low hospitalizations & deaths.- Rapid increase of infections in Portugal, with older & highly vaccinated population.- Resurgence in both countries without BA.2 wave .- ECDC listed as VOCs
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As scientists working in infectious diseases, the first thing that we do when a virus reemerges is to read the scientific literature. Ten MonkeyPox scientific publications that I read yesterday, thanks @rjlessells for the list!. Fine et al. 1998
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New Pre-Print from SA: A young female with advanced HIV persistently infected with SARS-CoV-2 for 9 mts, virus accumulating >20 additional mutations. ART suppressed HIV & SARS-CoV-2. Increased vigilance is needed to benefit individuals & prevent variants
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Hot of the press: Covid-19 variants names by @WHO. - 501Y.V1 (B.1.1.7) is now called Alpha, .- 501Y.V2 (B.1.351) is Beta, .- 501Y.V3 (P1) is Gamma,. B.1.671.2, the variant identified in India, is Delta. Can we stop calling variants by the countries that discover them?.
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As some countries close their border to us in SA🇿🇦, we open our hearts and our facilities to train African scientists to respond to the pandemic. In the next tweets, I introduce seven fellows that are currently being trained in our genomic labs in South Africa. Tweet 1/8.
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I agree with our minister Naledi Pandor on removing South Africa from the UK travel red list! Both country's pandemics are driven by the Delta variant (> 98% of infections) and the UK has a higher infection rate! This is looking like racism without a scientific basis.
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Such hypocrisy! Liz Truss, the foreign secretary as discovered omicron is transmitting in the UK 'it is important to make sure that we keep travel routes open, particularly to make sure that our economy remains strong.' Seriously? Your ban Africa and want to keep your open???.
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We told you so! Travel ban to Southern Africa did not stop .#OmicronVirus! We hope the world reflect on their actions and start learning that scientific transparency should be rewarded and not published. At least the early warning is saving many precious lives.
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Just out in the top British Medical Journal - How the UK's travel ban on South Africa will not be effective to decrease transmission of #Omicron, will damage the economy in Africa and may decrease the transparency of scientists & countries in the world!
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Finally out after peer-review @NatureMedicine:.Emergence of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron lineages BA.4 and BA.5 in South Africa. In this publication, we describe the origins, evolution and impact of BA.4 & BA.5, which emerged in SA and now dominate most of the global COVID infections. 1/x.
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Please no panic. The B.1.640 and .2 were initially flagged in Oct last year and discussed at @WHO, before #Omicron. There are only 400 genomes of this lineage, whereas >120,000 of #Omicron and the B.1.640.X has not over-competed Delta anywhere @DrEricDing please check some data!.
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Two weeks ago we were in 200-300 cases a day, a week ago in the 1000s and now > 15,000. In addition 1 of 4 tests are positive in South Africa. Amazing increasing of #OmicronVarient.
#COVID19 UPDATE: A total of 65,990 tests were conducted in the last 24hrs, with 16,055 new cases, which represents a 24.3% positivity rate. A further 25 #COVID19 related deaths have been reported, bringing total fatalities to 89,994 to date. See more here:
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I do love football but does make me sick to see a full stadium in England tonight with no social distancing or masks and we suffering in Africa and the lack of vaccines as they keep them to themselves so they can enjoy going to the stadium. .
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I am agreeing with my good friend @christian_happi ! We, Africa, should have put the U.K. on red list months ago! They had >40,000 cases a day and today the UK put #Nigeria on the red list for 27 cases of #Omicron! is that global or colonialism and racist Britain?.
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I will not accept charted planes with reagents as the Travel ban is so damaging to our economy. There are more effective ways to avoid introductions of variants (such as pre-and post- arrival tests, vaccinations, self- or forced- isolation) than blanked travel bans. .
Today, I spent a big part of my day talking to genomic and biotech companies as soon we will run out of reagents as airplanes are not flying to South Africa! It will be 'evil' if we can not answer the questions that the world needs about #Omicron due to the travel ban!.
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Such non-sense from the U.K. talking that the main problem is hesitancy in Africa. They had hoarded vaccines for 1 and 1/2 years and now want to blame in hesitancy? Why hesitancy in Africa? Because they do not trust the north and developed countries. Maybe a trust problem?.
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A thread on #Omicron sub-lineages BA.1, BA.1.1, BA.2, and BA.3. Here, we go back to original papers and highlight what we currently know about them in the geographic location where Omicron emerged and caused the first large wave of infections in the world.
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We are finishing and releasing a paper showing that Delta completely replace Beta in SA and potentially in all of Africa. We look forward to engaging the UK scientists and for constructive discussion with UK as we both fight the pandemic. All SA data is public at GISAID.
The red list, which covers over 50 countries, is in place to protect public health in the UK. We do not want current travel restrictions to be in place any longer than necessary and recognise the disruption they cause and the impact on people’s lives.
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I just got one of the biggest awards of my career, the Order of Merit of Portugal. I was lucky enough to receive the medal in person from the President of Portugal in his recent visit to SA. I am deeply honored and humbled to have been selected for this wonderful award -
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A new Covid variant is no surprise when rich countries are hoarding vaccines | Gordon Brown
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I think that the correct action would be to have a global fund that paid for the lost revenue to countries that are transparent and honest about their variants and epidemics. Tourism in South Africa is very important as provide much needed jobs and protect the environment.
Excellent interview @GilliSaunders on the effect of 🇬🇧 travel ban on the 🇿🇦 tourism industry. Absolutely devastating! .R82 billion annually (R225m/day) at risk >1 million jobs if include allied industries. Too many livelihoods already lost 😢 @satsa_sa
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Very honoured to have been in the TIME 100 list of Most Influential People in Health. Even happier, that I got a picture with my electric bike as in addition to science and hunting virus, I love cycling and nature. #TIME100Health.
Exciting News! @TIME's 2024 #TIME100Health list is out! Proud to announce Prof. @Tuliodna's selection! His second recognition underscores his ongoing impact in global health. Check out the full list at
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From the South African scientific dream team: Just out @Nature - T cell responses to SARS-CoV-2 spike cross-recognize Omicron. Absolute amazing work from dozens of scientists in SA to understand how T-cell respond to Omicron, led by @virusmonologues .
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@DrEricDing, can you please keep to facts? At present, there is no evidence that C.1.2 is more transmissible than Delta. On neutralization, we are generating the results now and can work with international agencies & scientific groups that helped with previous variant, Beta.
🦠NEW VARIANT—a new #SARSCoV2 variant C.1.2 just identified in South Africa & several countries, with concerns it could be more infectious and evade vaccines. #C12 also has mutation rate that is nearly **twice as fast** as the rate of the other variants.🧵.
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Dear @DrEricDing, when will you realize that we do not need donations or handouts but to be respected as scientists and world citizens? Such a colonial mentality!.
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Crazy that 'Global health scientists' taking #Omicron data & writing papers on their own! How to encourage early sharing of data? Name & shame??? What about 'Name & Fame???'. We would like in the next tweets to name scientists that offered a helping hand 1/3.
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This is amazing, rock solid science by some of the best scientists on Earth and published in one of the best scientific peer reviewed journals! Hope this is the last nail on the conspiracy theory of the origin of COVID.
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This is a misleading thread! The Omicron and BA.4/5 in South Africa was much, much less deadly than any of the previous waves! 1/3.
To anyone pointing to South Africa to suggest the impact of the omicron wave has been 'mild' or that the BA.4/5 haven't had much impact, I'd urge you to look at excess deaths. 29,500 excess deaths since Jan (omicron wave) & a peak of 1,844 excess deaths/wk during BA.4/5 wave.🧵
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A small thread on:.1) Why we are alerted but not too concerned of the global effects of the massive wave of COVID-19 in China,.2) Why the proposed restrictions from Italy & USA are not likely to be effective. 3) Some simple global interventions for 2023.
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Hi, thanks, very humbled and surprised as I have not read the piece at Nature. Of course this is a team effort with 100s of African and Brazilian scientists @houzhou @rjlessells @EduanWilkinson @Jenn_Giandhari @Mittenavoig @vagnerf0nseca.
Congratulations to @Tuliodna and @kallmemeg for their extraordinary efforts during the pandemic, named today as @Nature's 10, among 10 people who helped shape science for 2021 .
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@DrEricDing, you may have the wrong info or be confused. Firstly, SA does not have a new CDC, secondly, our current infection is low especially in kids. Thirdly, we have a very efficient scientific community, so may be better to retweet our results and data than create it. .
📊SEVERITY IN KIDS—To debunk/educate those asking if #Omicron is more severe versus Delta in kids relative to adults—let’s look at new official 🇿🇦CDC’s data—➡️case-hospitalization rate is HIGHER now in kids vs Delta, & higher than adults! (Look at chart below—even risk adjusted).
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Thanks @ThuliMadonsela3 these three women scientists work day and night to genotype and characterize variants! They also make me proud! When they met you they were training 17 African countries on genomics surveillance.
The cherry on top after my brief motivational talk to Africa’s bright minds being trained in #genomics at @STIAS_SA on November 11, was chatting and posing for pictures with the women scientists at the cutting age of South Africa’s genome sequencing revolution.
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I was asked yesterday by big media if we should be surprised by novel epidemics (H5N1, Mpox, COVID-19, Lassa, MERS, Dengue, Oropouche, etc). My answer was that we should be surprised by not expecting diseases to emerge when we destroy the environment.
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The growth advantage of Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 over BA.2 and BA.1 is 0.08 and 0.12 per day @C_Althaus and a little bit higher by @TWenseleers (whom I would like to apologize for criticizing Twitter & hope he can work with us to better characterize new SA lineages).
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@Dr_D_Robertson Nope, I will not accept reagents without releasing the travel ban! Your secretary of state said today that in spite of local transmission she would not close their airspace of the border as she needs to protect the U.K. economy. We need to realize that this is a global pandemic.
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When will this nonsense stop??? Viruses & epidemics come from animals & humans and not from labs. We have a potential new one brewing in avian & mammals! Putting our heads in the sand & not understanding how pandemics & epidemics arise will not stop them.
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O desprezo pela Ciência no Brasil chegou ao pior patamar da década. Menos do que um terço do financiamento de 2015! Uma história muito triste, o Brasil produz cientistas de qualidade global que não terão condições de trabalho para ficar no Brasil e ocorrerá fugas de cérebros. 1/4
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Arrived to a great surprise! 6 great bottles of wines and a message 'Here is something special and to say "Thank you" for your science-leadership' This will keep me going with a smile 😁🥰🤩
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Good news on COVID-19 variants. The current sub-lineages BQ.1s & XBBs are not causing a deadly wave of infections in world. In South Africa, which many times see things early in Omicron evolution BQ1s & XBB low prevalence & no cause for great concern.
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The African Scientific Dream Team strikes again! Today a scientific report in Science, revealed that a large consortium of over 300 African scientists and public health institutions illustrated how the SARS-CoV-2 variants reached and spread across Africa.
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This is such a breakthrough! An effective Dengue vaccine developed in the Global South! 🇧🇷.
Dengue outbreaks can affect 390 million persons yearly. In a trial involving 16,235 persons in Brazil, the live, attenuated, tetravalent Butantan vaccine was efficacious in all age groups at 2 years. Read the full trial results:
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Mask mandates ending in South Africa. Despite all our difficulties, we managed well the 4th wave (Omicron BA.1) & 5th wave (Omicron BA.4/5). Time to have a break from mask-wearing. Hope we are not the ones to identify the new variant & get this pandemic behind us once & for all.
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I am so glad that our scientific interactions with the UK worked well and that South Africa and most of Africa is out of the travel red list! Important now to keep focused to control the pandemic, increase vaccination and strength genomics surveillance in Africa.
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SARS-CoV-2 variants over time in South Africa - Beta has not been detected for months, Delta, the same as the U.K. and everywhere in the world, dominates >99%. C.1.2 has been 'extinguished. Variants are not related to the science related to the travel ban from the U.K.
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Very important results showing deaths In South Africa back at pre-pandemic level, even with he BA.4 & 5 recent wave.
The BA.4/5 wave is over in South Africa. Confirmed C-19 deaths have dropped below 0.1 / million / day.
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Wounderful day! After a tour of our new state-of-the-art genomics facility at @ceri_news @StellenboschUni I could have 10 minutes to have a chat with our president Ramaphosa @PresidencyZA
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