According to researchers, the new highly contagious strain of Covid-19 recently discovered in the UK has arrived in China.
Chinese investigators detected the new strain in a woman who was tested on arrival at a Shanghai airport on Dec. 14 after a flight from the UK, according to an official publication dated Wednesday.
The publication of the Chinese Centers for Disease Control and Prevention CCDC Weekly said the case was “the first variant imported (UK) into China and posed a major potential threat to the prevention and control of COVID-19 in China “.
CCDC Weekly said the 23-year-old had tested negative for Covid-19 two days before her flight to China. Subsequent sequencing of the positive test revealed that it was different from a small outbreak of cases in Shanghai in November and from strains in Wuhan, where Covid-19 was first found.
The case of the Covid-19 patient was diagnosed as mild, according to the newspaper, which notes that several control measures were taken to isolate the woman and identify those who sat near her or treated her during the flight.
The news of the spread of the new strain in China comes a year after the disease control authorities of the central city of Wuhan issued an internal warning warning of the appearance of patients with pneumonia, the detection of which later it was called Covid-19. Although life has returned to normal in most of China, the country has experienced new groups of the disease while avoiding strict early-year blockades.
On Wednesday afternoon, China’s top regulatory agency approved the mass use of a vaccine produced by a Beijing-based drug development unit of China National Pharmaceutical Group Co., more commonly known as Sinopharm.
President Xi Jinping credited China’s national spirit in response to the outbreak, which by official figures has recorded nearly 96,000 cases and 4,782 deaths. “We overcame the impact of the pandemic and achieved great successes in coordinating prevention and control and in economic and social development,” he said.
Reuters first reported the warning about the detection of the British strain in China. CCDC Weekly, an author affiliated with China’s leading disease prevention agencies, has received little coverage in China’s major state media.
This week, health officials said the new strain was first detected in the United States in a Colorado man.
The strain was detected in the UK in September and in early December was responsible for more than 60% of new cases in London, scientists said. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson, on December 19 imposed new blockades on the country citing its simpler transmission, which caused several other countries to suspend commercial flights to London.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said on December 24 that China was following other countries in suspending flights from the United Kingdom
Write to James T. Areddy to [email protected]
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