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Amid new concerns in the second wave and preparations for the third, Vietnam has discovered a new variant of COVID-19 – a hybrid of strains found in India and the United Kingdom. The variants found in India and UK were classified by the World Health Organisation as “variants of global concern”.
Addressing a press conference on 29 May, Vietnamese Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long said that the country will soon publish genome data regarding the variant.
But, how does the variant spread? Who is at risk? Here’s everything we know so far.
What do we know about the variant?
Who is at risk?
How has it affected Vietnam?
Is it a variant of concern?
Not yet. The WHO has classified four COVID-19 variants as variants of concern, including the B.1.1.7, B.1.617.2, B.1.351 (first found in South Africa), and P.1 (first identified in Brazil), so far.
Do vaccines protect an individual against this variant?
There is no data on this yet. In a country of more than 96 million people, fewer than 30,000, that is just 0.03 per cent population, have been vaccinated.
However, it was established earlier on that the vaccines are effective against the B.1.1.7 variant.
Last week, a study conducted by Public Health England (PHE) found that while two doses of the vaccine (AstraZeneca and Pfizer) provide 81 percent protection against the B.1.617.2 variant, a single dose is considerably less effective when compared to the B.1.1.7 variant.
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