Shanghai, China:
China has confirmed its 1st case of a new coronavirus variant that was lately detected in Britain, overall health officials stated.
The new strain, which professionals say potentially spreads quicker than the original variant, has prompted travel restrictions on the UK by more than 50 nations — like China, exactly where the coronavirus 1st emerged late final year.
The 1st patient in China with the new variant is a 23-year-old lady from Shanghai who arrived from Britain on December 14, the Chinese Centre for Disease Control stated in a analysis note published Wednesday.
She was hospitalised on arrival as she showed mild symptoms. Health professionals performed a genetic sequencing of her test samples on December 24 “due to travel history from the UK and abnormalities in nucleic acid test results”,” the China CDC said.
The patient was found to have a strain different to those found in Shanghai or Wuhan earlier, and further testing confirmed it was the variant known as B.1.1.7 that has been spreading in the UK since October.
Health authorities have carried out contact-tracing, the CDC statement added.
China suspended direct flights to and from Britain indefinitely on December 24 because of the new strain.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said the new variant “may perhaps be up to 70 per cent more transmissible than the original version of the illness”.
But there is no proof so far to recommend that infection with the new variant is more probably to lead to a extreme case of Covid-19 or enhance the danger of death.
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