The third wave of the new crown epidemic in South Africa is mainly caused by the Delta strain

Xinhua News Agency, Johannesburg, June 26 (Reporter Jing Jing) South African health experts said on the 26th that the third wave of the country's new crown epidemic was mainly caused by the delta strain of the new crown mutant virus.

Tulio de Oliveira, head of the research, innovation and sequencing platform in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, said at a press conference that day that the Delta strain is more infectious than other strains. Delta The strain has now become the main reason for the surge in confirmed cases.

De Oliveira said: "This strain initially caused the spread of the new crown epidemic in India, and now it spreads very rapidly in South Africa and has become a major source of infection. The recent community transmission in KwaZulu-Natal has been carried out. Studies have shown that this strain has already dominated."

Mamoroko Kubay, Acting Minister of the Ministry of Health of South Africa, said at a press conference that South Africa is currently at the peak of the third wave of epidemics, and it is expected that the severity of this wave of epidemics will exceed the second wave.

The data released by the South African National Institute of Infectious Diseases on the same day showed that in the past 24 hours, there were 17,958 new confirmed cases of new crown in South Africa, with a total of 1913861 confirmed; 157 new deaths and a total of 59778 deaths. The positive rate of COVID-19 was 25.6%.