Vietnam has detected a new hybrid COVID-19 strain between the variants first identified in Britain and India, according to local media VnExpress on Saturday.
According to the Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long, the hybrid strain could spread very fast in the air, and the Vietnamese health ministry will announce this new strain on the world gene map.
The two mutated strains first identified in Britain and India are currently the most common variants among the new COVID-19 cases in Vietnam in the ongoing infection wave.
Vietnam reported 87 new COVID-19 cases from 6:00 p.m. local time Friday to 6 a.m. Saturday, raising the total confirmed cases in the country to 6,657, according to its Ministry of Health.
The new cases, which are all community transmissions, include 57 in the northern epidemic hotspot Bac Giang province, 27 in the nearby northern Bac Ninh province, and one in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi, among others.
All the cases are contacts of previously confirmed patients or linked to the clusters of infections in the localities.
Nationwide, as many as 2,896 patients have so far recovered, and over 161,400 people are being quarantined and monitored.
As of Saturday morning, Vietnam has recorded a total of 5,164 domestically transmitted cases, including 3,594 detected since the start of the latest outbreak in late April, according to the health ministry.
