Bukola Afeni
Editor
An official of the United Kingdom has announced further 16.1 million dollars (12.2 million pounds) in funding for research of the SARS-CoV-2 virus’ genome structure in an effort to prevent the future spread of COVID-19.
According to NAN portal, the development was published in a statement by the Department of Health and Social Care on Monday.
The funds will be used to expand the whole genome sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 to assess how the virus spreads, and evolves as the UK experiences a surge in the number of new cases of the coronavirus disease.
“The funding will be distributed to the COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium, which has already generated and published more than 100,000 SARS-CoV-2 genomes.
The rising number of COVID-19 cases in the UK requires an expansion of the national SARS-CoV-2 genome sequencing capacity. This is to ensure that the benefits of using genome sequence data can be realized in a rapid and robust manner”.
“More than 1.36 million cases of COVID-19 had been registered in the UK by the Department of Health and Social Care, as at last Sunday, public health officials in the United Kingdom registered 24,962 new positive test for Coronavirus.”
The data from the department shows that the number of deaths reported in the UK that have COVID-19 on the death certificates currently stands at 61,648”.
