Vietnam: Health Minister announced on Saturday that health officials had identified a new strain of the coronavirus, which is a combination of the Indian and English strains and is spreading rapidly in the air.
With Vietnam successfully preventing the outbreak late last year, the country has seen a dramatic increase in cases since late April, accounting for more than half of the country’s 6856 cases.
Vietnam’s Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long described the latest mutation on Saturday as “very dangerous”.
Viruses mutate all the time and most variants are inconsequential, but some can make a virus more contagious.
Since Covid-19 was first identified in January 2020, thousands of mutations have been detected.
“Vietnam has uncovered a new Covid-19 variant combining characteristics of the two existing variants first found in India and the UK,” Mr Nguyen told a government meeting, according to Reuters news agency.
Mr Nguyen said the new hybrid variant was more transmissible than previously known versions, especially in the air. He said it was discovered after running tests on newly-detected patients, online newspaper VnExpress reported.
The variant of Covid-19 first identified in India last October – called B.1.617.2 – is more transmissible than the UK/Kent variant – also known as B.1.1.7 – according to experts.
Research suggests that vaccines, such as the Pfizer and AstraZeneca jabs, are highly effective against the Indian variant after two doses, but protection from one dose appears to be reduced.
There is no evidence that any mutations of the coronavirus cause much more serious illness for the vast majority of people.
As with the original version, the risk remains highest for people who are elderly or have significant underlying health conditions.
But a virus that is more infectious and equally dangerous will in itself lead to more deaths in an unvaccinated population.
It has also recorded 47 Covid-related deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
