Any New Mutation Of COVID-19 To Complicate Situation With Pandemic - WHO Representative - UrduPoint

Any new variant of SARS-CoV-2 will complicate the situation involving the coronavirus pandemic, Representative of the World Health Organization (WHO) to Russia Melita Vujnovic said on Tuesday.

"Any mutation can have a different effect depending on how the virus behaves. So yes, it complicates the situation," Vujnovic said live on the Rossiya 24 channel when asked whether new COVID-19 variants can complicate the epidemiological situation across the world.

The WHO representative added that the virus' behavior should be constantly monitored to establish whether it can affect mortality or the severity of the disease.

"The higher contagiousness of the virus complicates the situation because it requires much more intensive sanitary and epidemiological measures," Vujnovic said.

In December, the UK informed the WHO of a mutated variant of SARS-CoV-2, which is reported to be 70 percent more transmissible than other coronavirus strains. 

Although the new strain has not been proven to be more pathogenic, many states shut their borders and suspended travel with the United Kingdom. The closures, however, did not prevent the strain from infiltrating dozens of countries.