Vietnam has discovered a new variant of Covid-19 that is a hybrid of the Indian and UK strains, health officials confirmed on Saturday.
Scientists in Vietnam examined the genetic makeup of the virus that had infected recent patients and found the new variant, according to health minister Nguyen Thanh Long.
Long, who is a doctor, said laboratory tests suggest that the new strain, which is a combination of the Indian and British variants, may spread more easily by air than other versions of the virus.
'We have discovered a new hybrid variant from the Indian and the UK strains,' Long told a national meeting on the pandemic on Saturday, according to state media.