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Updated March 12th, 2021 at 08:43 IST

Belarus reports first cases of UK coronavirus variant: Health Ministry

The Belarusian Health Ministry on March 11 said that the coronavirus variant, which was first discovered in the UK, now has been registered in Belarus.

Reported by: Bhavya Sukheja
UK
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The Belarusian Health Ministry on March 11 said that the coronavirus variant, which was first discovered in the UK, now has been registered in Belarus. The press service said that people who arrived from countries, including Poland, Ukraine and Egypt, were the first carriers of the new strain. According to Belarus’ state-owned news agency BelTA, the officials further informed that several cases of local transmission of the UK variant were also confirmed. 

Yelena Gasich, head of the laboratory for diagnostics of HIV and associated infections, said that the centre conducts continuous genotyping to determine mutations of the SARS-CoV-2 virus circulating in or imported into the country. She said that the UK variant was found in people who arrived from abroad and added that the deletion at position 69/70 in the spike protein has been found in the samples. Yelena said that this deletion is common for the UK variant of the virus'. Moreover, she added that the analysis of viral genome sequence data identified other spike protein mutations present in four samples, which also suggested that it was the UK variant. 

Further, Yelena said that in order to confirm the presence of new COVID-19 variants in Belarus, one of the samples was subject to whole-genome sequencing, and the analysis of this sample in the GISAID database revealed that this genome belonged to the UK variant. The Belarusian press service has said that the COVID-19 pandemic is aggravated by mutations of the pathogen. The officials added that this is common for RNA genomic viruses and thus, it is of paramount importance to track mutations, observe social distancing and conduct vaccinations. 

UK variant has ‘higher’ mortality rate 

Meanwhile, the UK reported a SARS-CoV-2 variant of concern (VOC), lineage B.1.1.7, last year in December 2020 after cases were detected in England and parts of London. The strain quickly became dominant, spreading in over 30 countries abroad, including the US. Earlier, scientists found that the more virulent UK strain of the coronavirus which was first detected across England and London has a "significantly higher” mortality rate. The variant dubbed as B.1.1.7, is “more lethal, and leads to more hospitalizations and caseload” as compared to the other mutants, based on the analysis of data released by New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG) on SARS-CoV-2 variant B.1.1.7. After several preliminary analyses, it was found that the death rate from the new SARS-CoV-2strain was 70 per cent more lethal, a study published British Medical Journal on Wednesday revealed. 

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Published March 12th, 2021 at 08:43 IST

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