Ministry Of Health To Strengthen Testing For Coronavirus Due To Its New Strain

The Ministry of Health intends to step up testing for coronavirus due to its new strain.

Deputy Minister of Health and Senior Medical Officer Viktor Liashko announced this during a briefing, Ukrainian News Agency reports.

"We will intensify testing to see if the mutated coronavirus is circulating in Ukraine," he said.

According to the Deputy Minister, increased attention will be paid to patients with suspected coronavirus infection who, during the incubation period, were in the United Kingdom or had contact with those who arrived from this country.

The virus isolate from samples of these patients will be passed on to researchers to study the genome.

Liashko noted that the appearance of a mutated form of coronavirus was expected.

"Now about 12,000 mutations have been identified in the coronavirus," he stressed.

Also, the Deputy Minister said that tests by the polymerase chain reaction method, which are approved for use in Ukraine, determine the RNA of the virus by several fragments.

In late December, the Public Health Center intends to discuss with test manufacturers and suppliers the possibility of changing the primers for detecting coronavirus in accordance with the recommendations that the United Kingdom plans to release on December 27.

Besides, Liashko stressed that the appearance of a mutated form of coronavirus is not associated with the start of vaccination in the United Kingdom.

The mutated form appeared before the start of the campaign, and a similar mutation of the virus, not associated with travel to the United Kingdom, has been identified in the Republic of South Africa.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, the Ministry of Health recommends refraining from travel to the United Kingdom, Denmark, Australia and the Netherlands due to the detection of a new strain of coronavirus.

Ukraine has decided not to close flights with the United Kingdom for now.

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