News / Foreign Policy

‘British Virus’ detected in the Indian subcontinent as it spreads around the world

Tuesday, 29 December 2020 3:18 PM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 29 December 2020 3:18 PM ]

The "British Virus" has now spread to the Indian subcontinent raising fears of a new and more deadly wave of the pandemic

The new variant of the coronavirus – dubbed the “British Virus” – is continuing to spread around the world, causing panic and disruption in the process.

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Pakistan and India have become the latest countries to report their first cases of the new variant of Covid-19, which is reportedly 70 percent more transmissible but not necessary more deadly.

Pakistan has identified at least three cases of the much more potent variant of the coronavirus, all of which involve travelers from the UK.

Meanwhile, India has reported six confirmed infections of the new strain, again all of which relate to people who had arrived from Britain.

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India becomes the latest in a long list of countries to suspend all travel to and from the UK as fears of a new and more potent variant of Covid-19 spreads panic around the globe.

Meanwhile, in Europe there are mounting concerns that the “British Virus” has been present on the continent much earlier than previously thought.

In Germany, health officials said on Tuesday (December 29) that the new and much more potent virus variant has been present in the country since November.

The health ministry of Lower Saxony state said in a statement referencing the “British Virus” that researchers were “able to sequence the variant of the B117 virus in a person infected in November this year”.

The statement added that this is the same variant “responsible for a large proportion of infections detected in the south of England”.

The variant was reportedly detected in an elderly patient who died of Covid-19. His wife was also infected with Covid-19 but was fortunate enough to survive.

The elderly couple reportedly caught the new variant of Covid-19 after their daughter returned from a trip to the UK in mid-November, where according to the health authority of Lower Saxony she “in all likelihood” was infected with the “British Virus”.