A group of Tokyo Medical and Dental University announced that a virus with a new mutation was detected for the first time in Japan for the highly infectious mutant virus "Delta strain", which is the mainstream of the new coronavirus epidemic.
Since it is not known whether it will affect the infectivity etc., the group will proceed with further analysis.
This was announced by a group of Associate Professor Hiroaki Takeuchi of Tokyo Medical and Dental University.
The group collected a mutant virus of "Delta strain" from a patient who visited a university hospital in the middle of this month and examined the gene in detail, and found that there was a mutation called "N501S".
There are only eight reports of delta strains with this mutation in the world, and it is the first time in Japan that it seems that the mutation has occurred in Japan due to genetic characteristics.
This mutation is similar to the mutation of "N501Y" in the "Alpha strain" first found in the United Kingdom, but it is unknown whether it affects infectivity or the like.
The group will continue to analyze it, and Associate Professor Takeuchi said, "If the infection spreads, new mutant strains may appear one after another in Japan, so it is necessary to somehow control the infection. A virus monitoring system that analyzes genes I have to expand it further. "