Vietnam official has stated today that they have identified a different coronavirus variant which spreads through the air and is a blend of the Indian and British variant.
The country is having difficulty in coping with new outbreaks across more than half of its area, including industrial regions and large cities such as Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.
Over 6,800 cases with 47 deaths have been documented in Vietnam since April.
“We have discovered a new hybrid variant from the Indian and the UK strains,” Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long said while addressing a nationwide conference on the pandemic today, as per the 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 state the number of cases documented due to the new variant but mentioned that Vietnam will soon publicize the finding in the world’s chart of genetic strains.
Vietnam’s Central Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology mentioned in a statement today that its scientists had identified gene variations in four out of 32 patient samples via gene sequencing.
