STOCKHOLM, February 20 (Xinhua) – The mutated coronavirus that was first identified in Brazil has now been found in Sweden, local media reported on Saturday.
Four people in the Gävleborg region north of Stockholm have been confirmed infected, Swedish Television (SVT) reported. None of them have had to seek hospital care, but the authorities are still worried.
“They have not traveled abroad but within the country. We do not know exactly how they were infected, but we continue with intensified tracking of the contact,” regional infection control doctor Shah Jalal told SVT News.
“It is very worrying,” he said, adding that the strain first identified in Britain is also spreading in Gävleborg.
Earlier this week, the first cases were confirmed in connection with the coronavirus variant that was first identified in South Africa in Sweden.
All of the new strains are thought to be more contagious than the original virus. In mid-January, fewer than 100 cases of the mutation were first detected in the UK and Sweden. It has now been found in 20 of the country’s 21 regions and is believed to account for about 20 percent of all new infections.
“This is not at all surprising,” said Matti Sallberg, vaccine expert and professor at Karolinska Institutet, SVT News, that the new strains have been found in Sweden.
“All varieties around the world will be displayed everywhere. We have not closed the world.”
As the world struggles to control pandemics, vaccination is underway in many countries with the already authorized coronavirus vaccines.
At the same time, 251 candidate vaccines are still being developed worldwide – 70 of them in clinical trials – in countries such as Germany, China, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States, according to information published by the World Health Organization on Friday.
Source: sn.dk