An infectious disease expert on Monday, May 31, dispelled fears over a newly-detected coronavirus disease (COVID-19) variant from Vietnam.
According to multiple reports, the variant was said to be a hybrid of the highly transmissible variants first detected in India and the United Kingdom.
"The reports are very sketchy. We haven't even seen the sequences yet," infectious diseases specialist Dr. Edsel Salvana said in an interview with CNN Philippines.
Salvana maintained that the variant from Vietnam was not yet a variant of concern.
"We need to study very well whether this really is a hybrid or if it's really just another variant that acquired these mutations in the course of natural mutation and that does not necessarily translate to increased transmissibility or decrease susceptibility to our vaccines," the expert noted.
He even likened the situation to the P.3 variant, which was found in the Philippines. The P.3 variant remains a variant under investigation.
"For instance, P3, which is our own variant that was discovered in the Philippines doesn't seem to be a variant of concern now because the number of cases has not really skyrocketed," Salvana added.
"It is very preliminary and I really do wish that people would be more careful when they share this kind of information because it really gets sensationalized and causes a lot of needless panic."
Vietnam Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long flagged the new variant as "very dangerous."
Laboratory cultures of the new variant, which is said to be much more transmissible than the previously known types, revealed that the virus replicated itself very quickly," Long was quoted as saying.