The World Health Organization is organizing an emergency meeting in connection with the discovery of a new strain of coronavirus B.1.1.529 in Botswana.
During this meeting, WHO staff plan to discuss how dangerous the new strain is and how it may affect the effectiveness of existing vaccines.
“We do not yet have sufficient information about him. Less than 100 complete genetic sequences are available. However, we know that this strain has many mutations”, said Maria Van Kerkhove, head of the technical team at the WHO Emergency Diseases Unit.
Kerkhove also emphasized that the organization is closely monitoring the new variant of the virus and its mutations in the spike protein.