It is a dissemination at a sustained rate.
The World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Wednesday that the British variant of the virus, which causes a similar form of Covid-19, continues to spread across the world.
Last week it was present in 60 countries and territories, 10 more than on January 12.
The South African variant, which, like the British, is much more contagious than the original SARS-CoV-2 virus, spreads more slowly and is present in 23 countries and territories, or 3 more than January 12, specifies the WHO in its weekly epidemiological review.
50 to 70% more contagious
The organization also indicated that it was monitoring the dissemination of two other variants that appeared in Brazil, P1, which appeared in the state of Amazonas and also detected in Japan on 4 people from Brazil and another variant.
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"There is currently little information available to assess whether the transmissibility or the severity are modified by these new variants", notes the UN agency, but it stresses that their genetic characteristics similar to the British and South African variants make necessary further studies.
The British variant reported in mid-December to the WHO is considered 50 to 70% more contagious than the original new coronavirus, is present in the 6 geographical areas of the WHO, while the South African variant is only present in 4 of them highlighted the WHO without specifying which ones.
Deaths on the rise
These two variants, which are much more contagious, are not a priori more dangerous, according to the current state of research, but by making more people sick more easily, they increase the pressure on health systems, which in certain countries such as the The United Kingdom or the United States are sometimes on the verge of explosion.
The question of the effectiveness of vaccines against these new variants has also arisen, but nothing so far shows that the products used so far are less effective.
In addition, laboratories have ensured that they were able to quickly provide new versions of their vaccine if necessary, while the Covid-19 pandemic has already killed more than 2 million.
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The WHO notes that the number of deaths increased by 9% in the week ending Jan. 17 from the previous week, reaching a record 93,000 deaths.
