[ad_1]
China has confirmed its first case of a new variant of the coronavirus that was recently detected in Britain, health officials said.
The first patient in China with the new COVID variant is a 23-year-old woman who flew to Shanghai from Britain on December 14, the Chinese Center for Disease Control said in a research note published on Wednesday.
The case “represents a great potential threat” to China’s efforts to prevent and control the spread of the virus, the authority said.
China has confirmed its first case of a new variant of the coronavirus that was recently detected in Britain, health officials said. In this file photo, a healthcare worker checks the temperature of passengers arriving at Shanghai Pudong International Airport in Shanghai on February 4.
The new strain, which experts say spreads potentially faster than the original variant, has prompted UK travel restrictions in more than 50 countries, including China, where the coronavirus appeared late last year.
It has been detected in 10 countries, including the UK and China, around the world so far.
According to the Chinese authorities, the patient was hospitalized upon arrival due to mild symptoms.
The virus test came back negative on December 12, two days before his flight to China, said the report published in the Chinese CDC Weekly, a research publications website.
The patient said she had run in a park without wearing a mask and had removed her mask to eat and drink while waiting to board the plane, officials said, who suspected she might be infected at the time.
China’s new case of the mutant strain threatens to spoil the country’s anti-virus efforts. In the photo, a health worker escorts the passengers who arrived at the Shanghai Pudong airport
Health experts carried out genetic sequencing of their test samples on December 24 “due to the history of travel from the UK and abnormal nucleic acid test results,” the CDC of China said.
The patient was found to have a different strain than previously found in Shanghai or Wuhan, and further testing confirmed it was the variant known as B.1.1.7 that has been spreading in the UK since October.
Health authorities have conducted contact tracing, the CDC statement added.
China suspended direct flights to and from Britain indefinitely on December 24 after the new strain was found in the UK.
But officials and media reports did not mention or cite the new infection to suspend flights.
Cases are increasing in the Chinese capital Beijing and northern China in recent days. In the photo, health workers examine residents in Dalian, Liaoning province, on December 23.
It occurs when two confirmed cases of the ‘super-COVID’ variant have been detected in the United States.
Colorado confirmed its first case Tuesday and reported a second suspected case yesterday when California identified a confirmed case of the mutant strain.
That has worried US health officials that the ‘super-COVID’ strain B117 first detected in the UK is already circulating in the country.
China’s new case of the mutant strain threatens to spoil the country’s anti-virus efforts, which has seen an increase in cases in the Chinese capital Beijing and northern China in recent days after apparently having largely contained the outbreak.
But a leading coronavirus expert, Dr. Zhang Wenhong, claimed that it is “ almost impossible ” for the country to have another COVID-19 outbreak due to its strong testing capabilities.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said that the new variant “may be up to 70 percent more transmittable than the original version of the disease.”
But so far there is no evidence to suggest that infection with the new variant is more likely to cause a severe case of COVID-19 or increase the risk of death.
This week there have been two confirmed cases of the new variant in Colorado and California.
Coronaviruses mutate regularly, acquiring a new mutation in their genome approximately every two weeks.
Researchers have observed the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 in real time more closely than any other virus in history.
So far, it has accumulated mutations at a rate of one to two changes per month. That means that many of the genomes sequenced today differ by about 20 points from the first genomes sequenced in China in January, but many variants with fewer changes are also circulating.
Many mutations are described as “silent” because they do not change the structure of the proteins they encode and produce a three-letter codon that translates into the same amino acid. These mutations are known as “synonyms.”
Other mutations can change the codon in a way that leads to an amino acid change. and these are known as “non-synonymous” mutations, but this amino acid substitution does not affect the function of the protein.
B.1.1.7 has 14 non-synonymous mutations, six synonyms, and three deletions, says the CDC.
The 17 mutations of B.1.1.7 all at once have never been seen before.
The news comes as China has granted conditional approval to a coronavirus vaccine developed by Sinopharm, a state-owned company.
The two-dose COVID-19 vaccine is the first approved for general use in China. The approval comes as the country has begun vaccinating 50 million people ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday in February.
