Andalucia Confirms Presence Of New Ugandan Covid Variant

ANDALUCIA confirms the presence in Spain of the new Ugandan Covid variant.
The regional Minister of Health has confirmed that a case of a new Covid mutation, first discovered in Uganda, has been reported in the Andalucian Community. According to the minister, the “novel” strain is characterised by “a greater transmission capacity.” Jesus Aguirra broke the news to journalists at a visit to the Salud Responde facility in Jaen on Thursday, March 18.
Mr Aguirre told reporters that the new strain is known as A23-1 and so far has only been detected in Uganda and in a few “very isolated” cases in the UK.
The minister added that so far all of the vaccines in use in Spain are responding “well” to Covid mutations and have been proven to “prevent them” but he warned of the vital importance of “having all our diagnostic instruments perfectly recording to be able to carry out the maximum possible sequencing” of new strains in the coming months.
On Monday, March 15, Mr Aguirre confirmed that three cases of the South African strain had been detected in the Andalucian Community. The minister said that one of the cases was brought in by a person from Senegal on a Morocco-Malaga flight while the second came from Equatorial Guinea to Madrid. The third infection was reported in an individual who flew from Tanzania to the Spanish capital, after a stop-over in Amsterdam. It is not clear how the virus mutations discovered in Madrid came to be in Andalucia.
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