Japan confirms new Covid-19 strain, which causes huge spikes in cases

Japan has reported that four individuals who had recently arrived in the country from Brazil were found to have a new mutated strain of the coronavirus that causes Covid-19.

The health ministry of the Asian nation reported that both men and women were sick, ranging in age from teens to individuals in their 40s.

Although similarities exist to newly discovered mutant strains first recorded in the United Kingdom, It is suspected that this unique form has not been spotted before in South Africa.

In Japan, this brings the number of confirmed infections of a variant strain to 34. Of these, three are cases where the person has not arrived from abroad, including two U.K. cases. On Sunday, the strain was found.

The Japanese government announced that it had reported the latest strain to the World Health Organization.

It has been confirmed that infected passengers arrived at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport on Jan. 2,

The National Institute of Infectious Diseases analyzed their samples and confirmed the COVID-19 form after having tested positive at the airport.

Symptoms such as trouble breathing, fever and sore throat were seen in three of the four infected.

Scientists have not been able to make conclusive decisions at this early stage about whether this new variant is more or less transmissible and whether it is more or less risky or not.

The effect of the latest Covid-19 vaccines on it is also not yet confirmed.

UK scientists announced earlier this week that they had tracked the exact spread of the UK mutant virus, which in the weeks before Christmas was blamed for a major increase in infections across southeast England and London.