Tulio de Oliveira

It is lovely to start Friday with a lovely view of the mountains and vineyards around Stellenbosch... Happy Friday.

A quiet Sunday, seating under fig trees and enjoying folk music in a market in SA

Wow! SWEAT Africa started! All about networking with investors and founders! #SWEATAfrica #YoungAfricaWorks

South African Minister of Small Business Development Stella Tembisa Ndabeni-Abrahams speech on women empowerment highlights the development of incubators, startuos, and SMEs in South Africa. Grea to see SA investment in innovation!

Very good event and speech by the minister of Women in South Africa on the need to develop women entrepreneurs and business, which is one of the man objectives of African STARS Fellowship and SWEAT Africa #YoungAfricaWorks #Women #Science

SWEAT Africa Tickets SOLD OUT! It's incredible to witness how quickly all tickets sold for the first experimental innovation festival in Africa. There is still significant interest from both investors and startups. What motivates you to try to attend a sold-out event? sweat.africa

We are excited to announce that we have over 100 startups registered to SWEAT Africa from 14 countries across the continent. If you are part of one of these startups and are interested in winning ZAR 100,000 in cash, consider joining our Pitching Competition visit: sweat.africa/hardtech-and...

The energy is remarkable. I will be attending the first edition of SWEAT Africa, 13-14 Feb, an event that has the potential to transform how we translate science into innovation and commercialization in Africa. sweat.africa

Wow, everyone should discover Stellenbosch & Franschhoek : SWEAT Africa’s Backdrop. These towns are science and innovation hubs. Home to Stellenbosch University and the Technopark innovation hub, the town is rich with researchers, engineers, and entrepreneurs sweat.africa

Deadline: 31 January for the call for African STARS Fellowships. We are selecting the next 40 fellows. The previous 70 fellows, selected from over 5,000 applicants were among the most intelligent and motivated individuals I have encountered.
Apply: www.starsfellows.africa/applyattypp/

Why we created SWEAT Africa “Africa has always had brilliant minds and scientists. In the COVID-19 pandemic, we lead in genomics and basic science, and what we’re now seeing is the infrastructure to transform those ideas into impactful technologies - sweat.africa

Please let me introduce Dr Thabo Mokhothufrom from Lesotho, an African STARS MBA Fellow. Dr. Mokhothu is Acting Director of Mental Health in Lesotho, overseeing mental health promotion, prevention, clinical services, and wellbeing programmes. www.starsfellows.africa/star-fellows...

Please meet the new cohort of African STARS Fellows! Let me introduce Dr Kamau Yvonne N. from Kenya. Dr. Kamau is a public health and pharmacy professional with over eight years of experience leading health innovations across Sub-Saharan Africa. More info: www.starsfellows.africa/2025/11/24/d... 🇰🇪

In 33 days, an epic event will be hosted in South Africa! The SWEAT Africa Tech Event 2026. SWEAT is a two-day, high-impact gathering designed to connect top investors with Africa’s leading deep-tech startups and early-stage founders. More info: sweat.africa

Applications open for the African STARS Fellowship. Four months of immersive Advanced and Translational Training (ATT) in South Africa or Senegal. Deadline 31 January 2026 - More info: www.starsfellows.africa/applyattypp/

Very proud to be a co-author on this comprehensive preprint on the novel, growing saltation lineage BA.3.2, together with @tuliodna.bsky.social‬, @darrenmartin.bsky.social, Dikeledi Kekana, and lead author @graemedor.bsky.social. 1/11
bsky.app/profile/tuli...

Identification and genomic characterisation of BA.3.2: a highly divergent BA.3-related SARS-CoV-2 lineage from southern Africa In November 2024, a highly divergent BA.3-related SARS-CoV-2 lineage, designated BA.3.2, was detected in South Africa, marking the first appearance of a BA.3-derived lineage in over two years. Phyloge...

Full pre-print open available and all South African sequences are public in @GISAID - Read at: www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...

In conclusion, Despite its limited prevalence, the persistence of BA.3.2 alongside dominant lineages, together with evidence of more recent expansion, indicates that this lineage retains the potential to become of epidemiological concern under favourable conditions.

Thanks to @longdeserttrain.bsky.social Prof. Darren Martin @houzhou and @graemedor to the analysis of the data and manuscript writing.

3) Will public health interventions be needed? No, SARS-CoV-2 is now just one of the respiratory pathogens and basic measures will be enough like countries take in winter wave of Flu

2) Will a new round of vaccination be needed? No. Previous immunity seems to work very well.

1) Will this new variant cause global concern? Nope, the high population immunity will hold this new variant.

A recent expansion of BA.3.2 has been seem in Germany

The emergence and continued circulation of BA.3.2 underscores the ongoing potential for highly divergent SARS-CoV-2 variants to arise and spread globally.

Extensive remodeling across the spike, including loss of the C15–C136 disulfide bond and substitutions in the SD1 and SD2 domains, may influence spike stability, cleavage, and fusogenicity.

The co-occurrence of D405N and R408S implies epistasis between these sites, while reversions R493Q and H505Y likely enhance ACE2 binding and antibody escape.

Relative to ancestral BA.3, BA.3.2 harbours 39 amino acid substitutions in the spike glycoprotein, two N-terminal domain deletions (Δ136–147 and Δ243–244), a four-residue insertion (ins214:ASDT), and a large deletion spanning ORF7a, ORF7b, and ORF8.

Phylogeographic and demographic analyses point to a southern African origin followed by multiple independent exportations and evidence of ongoing global transmission.

Phylogenetic reconstruction places BA.3.2 on an extended branch descending from ancestral BA.3, with no intermediate genomes detected, consistent with a prolonged period of unsampled or isolated evolution. Molecular clock analyses indicate accelerated divergence characteristic of a saltation event.

A highly divergent BA.3-related SARS-CoV-2 lineage, designated BA.3.2, was detected in South Africa, marking the first appearance of a BA.3-derived lineage in over two years.