Cyprus will be sending about 4 – 8% of its positive coronavirus samples to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) for coronavirus variant screening as of next week, the Ministry of Health has said.
According to the Ministry out of 24 positive samples for the period between 22 and 28 January tested at the Cyprus Institute of Neurology and Genetics 9 belonged to the British variant. No variants from South Africa and Brazil have been detected.
Screening for the coronavirus variant has been carried out at the Institute for a very small number of positive samples, while starting from next week about 4-8% of positive coronavirus samples in Cyprus will be sent to the ECDC for further screening, the Ministry said.
The ECDC has offered to screen a percentage of positive samples from EU member states, covering their transport and screening cost.
