(UTV | COLOMBO) – Vietnam has detected a Covid variant that appears to be a combination of the Indian and UK variants and can spread quickly by air, officials say.
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.
He added that the genetic code of the virus would be made available soon.
