Research teams such as Hokkaido University announced that genetic information of a mutant virus of the new coronavirus was detected in sewage collected in Japan at the beginning of December last year.
I think that there may have been people infected with the mutant virus in Japan at this time, and I would like to investigate in detail.
Research teams such as Assistant Professor Masaaki Kitajima of the Graduate School of Engineering, Hokkaido University have been collecting sewage from various parts of Japan since April last year to investigate the spread of the new coronavirus infection.
Of these, when the sewage collected on December 4, last year was analyzed, the genetic information of the virus with the same mutation "N501Y" as the mutant virus confirmed in the United Kingdom and South Africa was detected.
The research team has not published the name of the city that collected this sewage.
Confirmation of the mutant virus infection was first announced in Japan on December 25, last year, but the research team said that it is possible that there were people infected with the mutant virus in the country before this.
On the other hand, the research team said that it is not yet known whether the detected mutant virus is from overseas, and that it has not been detected in the sewage collected in November last year in the same city.
Assistant Professor Kitajima of the research team says, "We would like to proceed with the analysis of genetic information and investigate the spread of infection in Japan in more detail."