Vietnam discovers hybrid of Indian and UK COVID-19 version

HANOI (REUTERS/XINHUA) — Vietnam's health minister, Nguyen Thanh Long, said on Saturday (May 29) that the nation has discovered a novel coronavirus variation that is a combination of Covid-19 variations initially found in India and Britain and spreads swiftly by air, according to online publication Express.

According to Mr. Nguyen, the hybrid strain might spread quickly through the air, and the Vietnamese health ministry will publish information about the new strain on the world gene map.

The two altered strains previously found in the United Kingdom and India are now the most prevalent types among new Covid-19 patients in Vietnam as the infection surge continues.

Vietnam is fighting an epidemic that is expanding more swiftly after effectively suppressing the coronavirus for much of last year.

Since late April, about 3,600 individuals have been infected in 31 of the country's 63 cities and provinces, accounting for more than half of the overall illnesses.

“After running gene sequencing on newly detected patients, we have discovered a new variant that is a mix of India and UK ones,” Mr Nguyen was quoted as saying.

More specifically, it is an Indian variant with mutations that originally belong to the UK variant,” he said.

Vietnam had previously reported seven virus variants: B1222, B1619, D614G, B117 (UK), B1351, A231 and B16172 (India) (India).

The virus replicated itself very quickly in laboratory cultures of the new variant, which is much more transmissible than previously known types, explaining why so many new cases appeared in different locations in such a short period, according to the health minister.

So far, 6,396 coronavirus infections have been reported in the Southeast Asian country, including 47 fatalities (StraitsTimes)