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The SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that causes covid-19 has hundreds of mutations, although one of the most currently present in the second wave that Europe is experiencing occurred first in Spain, concludes a study by Spanish and Swiss scientists made public today.
Analysis carried out by the University of Basel, the Federal Polytechnic School of Zurich and the Spanish consortium SeqCovid-Spain, led by the Higher Center for Scientific Research (CSIC), conclude that the new variant has spread to Europe and other regions in recent months from Spain.
The relaxation of travel restrictions in summer, and the fact that Spain is a major tourist destination, facilitated the expansion of this variant of the virus genome, said a statement from the University of Basel.
The researchers have christened this mutation “20A.EU1”, and the analyzes indicate its presence in about 80 percent of the samples analyzed from Spain, 90 percent of those from the United Kingdom and 30-40 percent of the Swiss .
The researchers affirmed that its appearance in Spain, during the summer months, would be linked to a “super-spreading event linked to agricultural workers in the northeast of Spain”, and after that it spread throughout Spain and a dozen European countries, even registering related cases even in Hong Kong or New Zealand.
Nothing indicates, they clarified, that this variant of the coronavirus is more dangerous than others, has a different behavior, or that it is the only one prevalent in the second European wave, where other mutations have been identified.
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