A new coronavirus strain have been confirmed in Brazil. The identification of the variant has raised health concerns and warnings of new strains likely to develop with the passing time. Earlier two identical mutated strains have been confirmed in U.K and South Africa.
The newly discovered strains have not shown any sever disease outcomes yet. Although the health authorities are concerned about the increase in number of infections and additional deaths as the new variants are thought to be more transmissible than the original one.
As reported by the Japan’s National Institute of Infectious Diseases (NIID), the Brazilian variant virus belongs to the B.1.1.248 strain and is having 12 mutations in the spike protein. The new Covid variant was detected by the NIID in four travelers from Brazil’s Amazonas state on Jan. 2.
According to the data by Johns Hopkins University, until now Brazil has reported more than 8.3 million Covid cases and 207,000 fatalities to it.
Dr. Trevor Bedford, a virologist and associate professor at the University of Washington tweeted;
After ~10 months of relative quiescence we’ve started to see some striking evolution of SARS-CoV-2 with a repeated evolutionary pattern in the SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern emerging from the UK, South Africa and Brazil. 1/19
— Trevor Bedford (@trvrb) January 14, 2021