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A new COVID-19 variant detected in South Africa with a high number of mutations has raised concerns among scientists and triggered travel restrictions by a number of countries amid fears of coronavirus transmissions.

The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) said 22 positive cases of the new variant have been recorded in the country following genomic sequencing. News of the announcement broke on Thursday

South Africa Health Minister Joe Phaahla said the variant was behind an “exponential” increase in reported cases, making it “a major threat”.

What do we know about the new variant?

The new COVID-19 variant, called B.1.1.529, has a very unusual constellation of mutations, which are worrying because they could help it evade the body’s immune response and make it more transmissible, scientists have said.

South African scientists have detected more than 30 mutations to the spike protein, the part of the virus that helps to create an entry point for the coronavirus to infect human cells.

Tulio de Oliveira, director of the KwaZulu-Natal Research and Innovation Sequencing Platform, said the variant has baffled experts. “It has a big jump in evolution, many more mutations than we expected,” de Oliveira said.

In comparison, the Beta and Delta variant respectively have three and two mutations. The latter originated in India and caused the devastating second wave last year.

The mutations are associated with increased antibody resistance, which makes the virus more contagious.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) said it is “closely monitoring” the reported variant and is expected to meet on Friday to determine if it should be designated a variant of “interest” or of “concern”.

Are COVID-19 vaccines effective against the new variant?

COVID-19 vaccines are based on the original coronavirus spike protein, raising concerns that the new dramatically different spike protein could render vaccines less effective.

Maria Van Kerkhove, the head of Emerging Diseases and Zoonosis at WHO, said on Thursday that “the concern is that when you have so many mutations, it can have an impact on how the virus behaves.”

“It will take a few weeks for us to understand what impact this variant has on any potential vaccines,” Van Kerkhove added.

Any new variant that is able to evade vaccines or spread faster than the now-dominant Delta variant might pose a significant threat as the world emerges from the pandemic.

Have infection rates increased?

The number of daily infections in Africa’s hardest-hit country has increased 10-fold since the start of the month.

The NICD said the number of detected cases and the percentage testing positive are “increasing quickly” in three of the country’s provinces, including Gauteng.

The NICD did not attribute the latest resurgence to the new variant, although some scientists suspect it may be the cause.

The country’s daily number of infections hit 1,200 on Wednesday, up from 106 earlier in the month.

Before the detection of the new variant, authorities had predicted a fourth wave to hit South Africa ahead of the festive season, starting about the middle of December