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Delta variant is progressively dominant in the community

22/07/2021 15:31

The presence of the Delta variant of COVID-19 in samples in Cyprus has gone up from only a few in the end of April-beginning of May to almost 100 percent by early July, according to the Ministry of Health.

All 34 samples taken in the last week of June from Cyprus and sequenced both by the ECDC and in Cyprus, the Delta variant was detected.

The Ministry said that in the framework of monitoring the epidemiological situation in Cyprus and the level of the new variant being present on the island, it has sent samples to the ECDC for sequencing and also started cooperation with a  private laboratory in Cyprus to examine samples which date from 19 April to 13 June from all districts.

The Ministry of Health gave a detailed account of samples taken from 9 March until 1st July. From 9/3/2021-18/4/2021, in 61 from the 68 samples the British variant was located (89.71%) while the Delta variant was not detected.

Then from 19/04/2021 - 25/04/2021, in 75 from the 78 samples, the British mutation was detected and only two Delta cases while in the week of 26/04/2021 - 02/05/2021 in all 44 samples the British variant was located. In the week of 03/05/2021 - 09/05/2021 in 121 from 125 samples the British variant was detected and in two samples the Delta variant.

In week 24/05/2021 - 30/05/2021 in nine out of the 22 samples the British variant was detected and 12 samples tested positive for the Delta mutation (54.55%) while in the week of 14/06/2021 - 20/06/2021, the British variant was located in 16 samples and the Delta in 14, (87.50%.)

Finally, in the week of 21/06/2021 - 27/06/2021, the British variant was located in only one of the 27 samples and the Indian variant in the remaining 26 (96.3%) while in the week 28/06/2021 - 1/07/2021 all 34 samples tested positive for the Delta variant (100%).

According to the above data, the gradual yet large increase of samples testing positive for the Detla variant is confirmed.

“From the small numbers of the Delta variant in late April to early May, the mutation is almost completely prevalent by early July”, the Ministry added.