Professor of Molecular Genetics and Virology at the University of the West Indies Professor Christine Carrington has revealed that the Brazilian variant of the Covid19 virus, is of concern and it is currently found in over 38.2% of the Covid samples they have taken using whole genome sequencing.
Speaking at the Ministry of Health virtual press conference on Monday, Prof Carrington said the information collected from 521 persons from August 1, 2020 to May 11, 2021, showed 16 lineages were detected from the Sars Cov-2 virus.
The main ones of concern were the UK variant now identified by the WHO as the Alpha variant and Brazilian or P1 variant.
She said in April, P1 was detected and accounted for about 38% of all the sequencing generated since December.
Carrington said the detection of the P1 variant has been increasing steadily from week to week especially from the epidemiological week 14 to week 19.
She pointed out that the rapid increase was also seen in other countries and not unexpected.
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