World News | Highly-contagious GH Strain of Coronavirus Spreading in South Korea
Get latest articles and stories on World at LatestLY. All recent coronavirus clusters in South Korea are seeded mostly by the highly-infectious GH strain of the virus, which is believed to spread six times faster than other types of COVID-19, the Health Ministry's Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) said on Monday.
Seoul [South Korea], July 6 (Sputnik/ANI): All recent coronavirus clusters in South Korea are seeded mostly by the highly-infectious GH strain of the virus, which is believed to spread six times faster than other types of COVID-19, the Health Ministry's Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) said on Monday.
In early May, South Korea relaxed lockdown but later reimposed some coronavirus-related restrictions amid new local clusters in Seoul and the nearby Gyeonggi-do province.
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Since May, the health authorities have confirmed 270 positive COVID-19 cases linked to a young man who visited several nightclubs in Seoul and over 150 more related to a retail logistics centre in the city of Bucheon of the Gyeonggi-do province. Most of the cases from both clusters are linked to the GH strain.
The KCDC has sequenced genomes of 526 coronavirus-positive patients and the GH stain was confirmed in 333 cases.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), COVID-19 is classified into seven different strains -- S, V, L, G, GH, GR and O (others) -- and GH is the most aggressive among them.
South Korea has identified all strains of the virus since the start of the outbreak, except for the L strain. The G, GH and GR stains started to spread in the country from April-May. (Sputnik/ANI)
(The above story is verified and authored by ANI staff, ANI is South Asia's leading multimedia news agency with over 100 bureaus in India, South Asia and across the globe. ANI brings the latest news on Politics and Current Affairs in India & around the World, Sports, Health, Fitness, Entertainment, & News. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)