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A case of infection with the Covid-19 variant detected in the United Kingdom, which is more contagious, was reported in China, in a person who was in that European country, authorities said.
According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, this variant of SARS-CoV-2 was detected in a 23-year-old woman who returned to Shanghai, China on December 14, from the United Kingdom.
The case was discovered on December 24, the day China announced the suspension of flights with the United Kingdom, having already traced the contacts the woman had, including passengers and crew on the flight on which she continued.
For the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the entry of this variant into China “represents a serious threat to the prevention and control of covid-19.”
Several epidemiologists believe that this strain is up to 70% more contagious, information that has led several countries to restrict travel to and from the UK.
A more contagious variant could mean widespread restrictions and lockdowns in several countries to mitigate the spread of the pandemic, decisions that could further delay the global economic recovery.
The news of the entry of this variant in China comes at a time when the Chinese authorities, for the first time, gave the green light to the commercialization of one of the covid-19 vaccines developed in the country, by Sinopharm and the subsidiary Instituto of Biological Products of Beijing. .
Both companies asked the Chinese regulatory authority for approval of the vaccine on Wednesday, after reporting that the effectiveness is 79.34%, according to provisional data from phase 3 clinical trials.
The covid-19 pandemic caused at least 1,791,033 deaths as a result of more than 81.9 million cases of infection worldwide, according to a report by the France-Presse (AFP) news agency.
The disease is transmitted by a new coronavirus detected at the end of December 2019 in Wuhan, a city in central China.
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