‘British variant’ of coronavirus found in Poland: laboratory

A potentially more infectious variant of the coronavirus found in Britain last year has now been detected in Poland, a laboratory has said.

Image by Gerd Altmann/Pixabay

Pixabay licence

The variant was found in a sample given by patient from Poland’s southern Małopolska region, state news agency PAP reported.

It added that the news was confirmed by the genXone laboratory on Thursday.

Health ministry spokesman Wojciech Andrusiewicz said a nationwide study would start next week to determine the scale of the so-called British variant in Poland, and to assess its potential health impact.

Poland on Thursday reported 7,152 new coronavirus infections and 419 more deaths, bringing its total number of cases to 1,457,755 and fatalities to 34,561.

A total of 591,785 people have been vaccinated against the coronavirus in Poland so far, officials said.

(pk)

Source: PAP