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"Raising measures against the English variant of covid"
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February 16, 2021 Due to the spread of new variants of the coronavirus, the "Istituto Superiore di Sanità and the Ministry of Health are strengthening both microbiological and epidemiological surveillance".
Thus the director of prevention of the Ministry of Health, Gianni Rezza, in a video intervention in which he takes stock of the Sars-CoV-2 variants in Italy.
Rezza then reported that ISS and the Ministry "also produce repeated prevalence studies that say what the distribution of the variants is on the national territory".
In the video, the epidemiologist recalls that "there are three best-known viral variants. The English variant, highly transmissible, is the most widespread on the national territory but fortunately it does not diminish the effectiveness of vaccines" he specifies.
"As for the Brazilian and South African variants - he added - they currently have a very limited distribution on the national territory".
"These mutations of the N protein are for now a rather rare phenomenon - concluded Rezza - for which antigen tests remain very useful, naturally for specific cases it is right to resort to molecular tests for confirmation".