China steps up Covid variant monitoring as countries impose entry curbs
China is increasing monitoring of Covid-19 variants as an unprecedented wave of the virus rips through its population, raising alarm around the world and triggering new restrictions on travellers from the country.
In recent days, Chinese researchers and officials have begun uploading genome sequence data from dozens of coronavirus samples to Gisaid, a global online database that allows scientists to track mutations of the virus.
The data, while limited, show that the primary Omicron sub-variants spreading in China are similar to those that have already been identified in Europe and North America, where they have already been mostly outcompeted by more virulent strains.
Japan, India, Taiwan, South Korea and Italy have also imposed restrictions on Chinese arrivals in anticipation of a wave of visitors as the country reopens its borders. Italy found more than half the passengers on one post-Christmas flight from China to Milan were infected, but on Thursday said no new variants had been found among the sequenced cases.
Gisaid said that in the four days to Wednesday, China had submitted 167 virus genomes and that provincial offices with the Chinese CDC had “noticeably increased the number of submissions of genome sequence and associated metadata from samples”.
This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Ryan McMorrow
