Brazil-Linked COVID-19 Variant Detected In UK - Virologist

Brazil-Linked COVID-19 Variant Detected in UK - Virologist

LONDON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 15th January, 2021) One of the coronavirus strains associated with Brazil has been detected in the United Kingdom, virologist Wendy Barclay said on Friday, the same day the UK government ban on travels from South America came into force.

"There are two different types of Brazilian variants and one of them has been detected in the UK," Barclay said, as quoted by Sky News.

According to the expert, who is the head of the G2P-UK National Virology Consortium, the variant was probably introduced into the UK some time ago, but she did not clarify if it is the same strain that prompted UK authorities to ban arrivals from 14 South American nations, Panama, Portugal and Cape Verde starting Friday.

Earlier on Friday, UK Transport Secretary Grant Shapps denied claims that the government had been too slow to react to the Brazilian variant, claiming that the authorities had only heard about it on Sunday.

"We acted extremely quickly given there are 12,000 different variants of coronavirus," Shapps told Sky news, stressing that it takes a "huge amount of time in science" to sequence the genome of any virus variant.

He also said that there has not been any flight coming from Brazil in the last week.