The new variant of the Coronavirus, which is spreading in the UK, carries mutations that could infect more children as it spreads, unlike previous strains.
This was disclosed by UK Scientists under the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG) and reported by Reuters.
READ: UK Government opens point-based immigration system
The scientists revealed that the variant being tracked had become the dominant strain of coronavirus in South England and might soon spread across the country.
Peter Horby, Chair of NERVTAG, said:
- “We now have high confidence that this variant does have a transmission advantage over other virus variants that are currently in the UK. There is a hint that it has a higher propensity to infect children. We haven’t established any sort of causality on that, but we can see it in the data. We will need to gather more data to see how it behaves going forward.”
READ: Covid-19: Coronavirus in Italy since September 2019 – Researchers
The UK government says the SARS-CoV-2 variant is 70% more transmissible, which has already caused European countries to close their doors to travellers from the United Kingdom. Flights and trains have been banned over concerns about the new coronavirus strain.
READ: COVID-19: Germany, Turkey, Israel, 2 others bar flights from South Africa
What you should know about the new viral strain
- The Nigerian media reported on Monday that the new variant was in Nigeria, according to scientists at the Africa Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases (ACEGID), at the Redeemers University in Ede, Osun State.
- Nairametrics reported that the UK Government warned that the new strain of Coronavirus spread faster and might already have left the UK. The country said it was working hard to contain the spread.
READ: COVID-19 mutant strain cause chaos at Oil markets
