China has confirmed its first case of a new coronavirus variant that was recently detected in Britain. It is reported by the Straits Times with reference to the China Center for Infectious Diseases.
The first patient in China with the new variant is a 23-year-old woman from Shanghai who arrived from Britain on December 14.
She was hospitalised on arrival as she showed mild symptoms. Health experts conducted a genetic sequencing of her test samples.
The patient was found to have a strain different to those found in Shanghai or Wuhan earlier, and further testing confirmed it was the variant known as B117 that has been spreading in the UK since October.
As we reported earlier, a new strain of coronavirus was discovered in Britain. Despite the ban on air travel between countries with the UK, cases of infection were found in the USA, India, Switzerland, Portugal, Canada, France, Japan, Pakistan.
Also, several countries have announced the mutation of Covid-19, in particular Denmark, Brazil, Malaysia and some other countries. It is assumed that it may be 70% more infectious than the already familiar "version" of the coronavirus. Whether it is more deadly is still unknown.