Outside Britain, nine cases of the new strain have been
reported in Denmark, as well as one case in the Netherlands and another in
Australia, according to the WHO.
“Across Europe, where transmission is intense and
widespread, countries need to redouble their control and prevention
approaches,” a spokeswoman for WHO Europe told AFP.
The UN agency urged its members worldwide to “increase the
sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 viruses where possible and sharing of sequence data
internationally, in particular, to report if the same mutations of concern are
found,” she said.
Several European countries decided Sunday to suspend all
flights from Britain after the discovery of the new strain which London said
was “out of control”.
The WHO noted “preliminary signs that the variant may be
able to spread more easily between people” and “preliminary information that
the variant may affect (the) performance of some diagnostic assays (tests).”
It said it had “no evidence to indicate any change in
disease severity, but this is also under investigation.”
Last week, Europe has become the first region in the world
to pass 500,000 deaths from Covid-19 since the pandemic broke out a year ago,
killing more than 1.6 million worldwide and pitching the global economy into
turmoil.
Countries are shutting down their economies with
restrictions again in a bid to rein in the virus.
AFP