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From: TT
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Photo: Fredrik Sandberg / TT
It will be another month before Sweden has enough testing capacity to map mutations in the coronavirus. Stock Photography.
It will be another month before Sweden has sufficient testing capacity to map mutations of the coronavirus, including the most contagious British variant, SVT reports.
The Swedish ability to map virus mutations via so-called genome sequencing is currently 1 percent. Mapping the virus genome is important to be able to monitor and see if the virus changes with respect to, for example, the course of the disease or its transmission.
Until the capacity in Sweden has increased, Swedish samples are sent to Germany.
– We’re not fully satisfied yet, we want us to have a capacity of around 10 percent, but then it’s not just the focus on the British variant, Karin Tegmark Wisell, deputy state epidemiologist, at the Public Health Agency, tells SVT.
To achieve the 10 percent target, regions have been tasked with expanding testing. In Denmark, the capacity is 25 percent, which Tegmark Wisell says is due to a long political investment in whole genome sequencing.
He does not believe that the Swedish capacity should be expanded further due to the British virus variant.
– Our assessment is that there is no risk that we lose a major difference, he says.
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