VIETNAM DISCOVERS NEW COVID VIRUS VARIANT

Vietnam has discovered a new COVID-19 variant which spreads quickly by air and is a combination of the Indian and British strains, health officials confirmed, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

The country is struggling to deal with fresh outbreaks across more than half of its territory, including industrial zones and big cities such as Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. More than 6,800 cases including 47 deaths have been reported in Vietnam, with the lion's share occurring since April.

"We have discovered a new hybrid variant from the Indian and the UK strains," Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long told a national meeting on the pandemic Saturday, according to state media.

"The characteristic of this strain is that it spreads quickly in the air. The concentration of virus in the throat fluid increases rapidly and spreads very strongly to the surrounding environment."

He did not specify the number of cases recorded with this new variant but said Vietnam will soon announce the discovery in the world's map of genetic strains.

Vietnam's Central Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology said in a statement Saturday that its scientists had detected gene mutations in four out of 32 patient samples through gene sequencing. There were seven known coronavirus variants in Vietnam before Long's announcement, according to the Ministry of Health.

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