“We have a patient who was detected with the strain from the United Kingdom, this strain that had not come out in our country until now, that sequencing comes from the groups that we do with the Gorgas Memorial Institute, they are random samples that are taken in the community from more or less 10 to 20% where there are higher number of cases”, indicated Dr. Leonardo Labrador, national head of the Epidemiology department of the Ministry of Health.

He explained that the patients are stable and the information on these two variants of COVID-19 was released on Friday, April 9.

On the other hand, he pointed out that three cases of the Brazilian variant P2 of COVID-19 have been confirmed in the country, reiterating that there is also a record of nine cases of the Brazilian variant P1.

"This new finding with the United Kingdom variant has passed as another COVID-19 patient, it is already recovered, the sequencing takes longer, this week, on Friday we were informed of the new findings in these patients that they are taken at random ... then we have the one from the United Kingdom, the Californian strain, that is, the United States, and the Brazilian strain,” he said.

He added that patients do not keep records of having traveled abroad, so the Ministry of Health is doing research to verify if they had contact with foreign people, if they have traveled.

“Investigations continue to verify if there is contact not only with the Brazilian strain but also with the UK and Californian strain, what we do know is that we have an advantage that they are patients who have already been captured, recovered, and that thanks to the traceability, all the biosecurity measures have been maintained, regardless of the strain, that is what we have always recommended, maintaining biosecurity to avoid the contagion of any of the strains that have been found in our country at this time," he said.