TOKYO (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 10th January, 2021) Japan's National Institute of Infectious Diseases (NIID) on Sunday confirmed it had found a new strain of the coronavirus among four individuals arriving from Brazil.
The new strain showed similarities to the variant detected in the UK and South Africa but there is no evidence that it is more transmissible or likelier to cause serious symptoms, news agency Kyodo reported, citing institute chief Takaji Wakita.
The four individuals arrived in Tokyo's Haneda airport from Brazil on January 2from the state of Amazonas, Brazil. The four tested positive in airport quarantine.
Of the four, a man in his 40s was hospitalized with difficulty breathing, a woman in her thirties displayed symptoms such as headache and sore throat. One male in his teens developed a fever while a female in the same age group showed no symptoms, Kyodo reported.
The news comes on the same day that Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said the government was mulling an expansion of the state of emergency in several regions of the country.
The new strains of coronavirus discovered in the UK and South Africa late last year were proven to be up to 70 percent more easily transmissible than its predecessor and are believed to be driving new waves of transmissions.
