As South African enters the 12th day of the nationwide lockdown aimed at containing the spread of Covid-19, local researchers have claimed progress in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

The scientists — from the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) and the University of the Western Cape's South African National Bioinformatics Institute (Sanbi) — have sequenced the first severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) genome.

The genome essentially provides a genetic “fingerprint” that can help understand the pandemic. It was detected in a South African patient with Covid-19, the respiratory illness caused by the virus.

The UWC said in a statement that scientists across the globe had been working around the clock digging more about the pandemic and virus causing it.

“Next-generation sequencing of pathogens allows us to perform genomic fingerprinting on viruses,” said Sanbi researcher Peter van Heusden, co-author of a new report presenting the sequence, phylogenetic analysis and modelling of non-synonymous mutations for a SARS-CoV-2 genome.