Researchers detect Covid-19 variant unique to Kenya, nation says

The variant was picked up in the southern Taita Taveta county and is spreading around the nation.

Scientists have discovered a coronavirus variant in the East African nation that is yet to be detected elsewhere in the world, the Daily Nation newspaper reported, citing Charles Agoti, a researcher at the Kenya Medical Research Institute.

Students of Olympic Primary School wait in a line to have their temperatures measured at the entrance of the school in the early morning of the official re-opening day of public schools on January 4, 2021, in Kibera slum, Kenya, as students return to school following a nine-month closure ordered by the government in March 2020 to curb the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus. (Photo by Gordwin ODHIAMBO / AFP)(AFP)

The variant was picked up in the southern Taita Taveta county and is spreading around the nation. Researchers at the institute are still studying whether it’s more easily spread and if it causes more severe illness, according to the newspaper.

Since the onset of the pandemic, scientists at the institute have sequenced about 500 genomes, most of them collected during the second wave, according to the Nation.