Hanoi, Vietnam (CU)_ According to Vietnam’s health minister, an extremely deadly combination of Indian and British coronavirus strains which spread fast in the air has been discovered in the country. The WHO officials did not immediately respond regarding the new variant identified in Vietnam. The World Health Organization is working with the Vietnamese officials to study the variant’s characteristics. The new virus strain has been reported as “very dangerous” by the government.
The Indian and British variants as well as those that originated in South Africa and Brazil have all been discovered and designated as “variants of concern” by the WHO. WHO’s senior epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove said, “At the present time we have not yet made an assessment of the virus variant. We expect more information soon.”
Owing to the new strain, the government has immediately imposed new guidelines. Ho Chi Minh City, home to nine million of the country’s 97 million residents, will be subjected to social distancing restrictions starting today. Tourist and religious locations, restaurants, hotels, beauty parlors, and massage spas will be closed until further notice. According to the state newspaper Vietnam News, the city officials will conduct a massive campaign to test its whole population with a plan of testing 100,000 samples every day.
Until now, the country seemed to have avoided the worst of the pandemic, but 85 worshippers were infected in a cluster at a Protestant church. Nguyen Thanh Long said, “Vietnam has uncovered a new variant combining characteristics of the existing variants found in India and the UK. That the new one is an Indian variant with mutations that originally belong to the UK variant is very dangerous.” According to Mr Long, laboratory testing of the new variant showed that it is much more transmissible than the earlier known types and that the virus replicated itself at a very fast rate.
Mr Long informed that the hybrid had been discovered in four people by the country’s National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology. He said, “The characteristic of this strain is that it spreads quickly in the air. The concentration of virus in the throat increases rapidly and spreads strongly to the surrounding environment”. So far, only 6,713 positive cases of the virus and 47 deaths have been reported in Vietnam. However, the count has more than doubled in the last month. According to Nguyen, this may be due to the new variant that is spreading in the country.
