NEW HYBRID VIRUS VARIANT WHICH SPREADS QUICKLY BY AIR, DISCOVERS IN VIETNAM

Sat 29 May 2021:

Vietnam has discovered a new Covid-19 variant which spreads quickly by air and is a combination of the Indian and British strains, health officials confirmed Saturday.

“We have discovered a new hybrid variant from the Indian and the UK strains,” Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long told a national meeting on the pandemic Saturday, according to state media.

“The characteristic of this strain is that it spreads quickly in the air. The concentration of virus in the throat fluid increases rapidly and spreads very strongly to the surrounding environment.”

He did not specify the number of cases recorded with this new variant but said Vietnam will soon announce the discovery in the world’s map of genetic strains.

Vietnam’s Central Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology said in a statement Saturday that its scientists had detected gene mutations in four out of 32 patient samples through gene sequencing.

There were seven known coronavirus variants in Vietnam before Long’s announcement, according to the Ministry of Health.

Vietnam — a country of 97 million people — has vaccinated a little over a million citizens.

Authorities have called on people and businesses to donate money to help procure vaccines.

The country presently has close to two million doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine remaining, but said it is buying more than 30 million doses of the Pfizer shot.

Cafes, restaurants, hair salons and massage parlours as well as tourism and religious spots have been ordered to close in various areas of the country.

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