Japan has discovered yet another variant of COVID-19, one that appears to have arrived with travelers from Brazil, the health ministry said on Sunday.
The mutation was discovered in four people who arrived at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport on Jan. 2 after a trip from the Brazilian state of Amazonas, including one man with respiratory problems and another with a fever, officials said.
The latest variant appears to be different from the highly infectious strains blamed for an explosion in Britain and South Africa, the ministry said.
“At the moment there is no evidence to show that the new variant found in those from Brazil has a high degree of infectivity,” Takaji Wakita, head of the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, told a briefing from the Ministry of Health. .
Studies are already underway on the efficacy of vaccines against the new variant, the ministry said.
Japan has already declared a state of emergency for Tokyo and three prefectures near the capital after an explosion of cases.
According to data from Johns Hopkins University, the country has had nearly 289,000 confirmed cases so far, with 3,850 dead.