It has been an unprecedented one year with the COVID-19 pandemic ravaging the entire world. Life hasn’t been much slower since we have known it, with the infrequent lock-downs and closure of schools and other public places.
We have subsequently navigated several turfs in the scientific world ranging from; the controversy on the “use or otherwise of face masks”, the superiority tussle of “Hydroxychloroquine as a wonder drug”, the “Euraka of Ivermectin” and now the fear of adverse effects that could potentially accompany the administration of the currently existing COVID-19 vaccines.
SARS-CoV-2 is the causative agent of COVID-19 and since the initial report from Wuhan, China, the number of infected persons has skyrocketed accounting for the current global estimate of 154,233,987 cases as of 4th May, 2021. Additionally, the SARS-CoV-2 has unfortunately claimed the lives of several millions of people worldwide. Despite the relatively low mutation rate of this virus, its high prevalence in the human population globally has allowed it to diversify quickly and genomic surveillance efforts have since identified a number of ‘variants of concern’ that have been associated with rapid expansion in their local communities and spread to other countries.