Shafaq News/ A coronavirus variant carrying some of the same mutations as the highly contagious British variant may have been in the United States since October and already be widespread, a reanalysis of more than two million tests suggests.

Genome sequencing to confirm whether the variant observed in Americans is the same as the so-called B117 variant currently circulating in the UK is under way.

Results are expected within days, but the revelations have prompted fresh questions about where the altered virus originated, including a small possibility that it began in the United States not the UK, or elsewhere altogether. The variant has also been found in at least 17 countries, including South Korea, Spain, Australia and Canada.

“It wouldn’t be at all surprising if at least some of the cases were B117,” said Eric Topol, head of Scripps Research Translational Institute in La Jolla, California, who was not involved in the research, but whose team confirmed a Californian case of the B117 variant on Wednesday.

“It has probably been here for a while at low levels – but you don’t see it until you look for it.”

Source: The Guardian