A person in Lithuania has been diagnosed to have the UK variant of the coronavirus, the Health Ministry confirmed on Monday.
According to the ministry's spokesman, the person is a woman from Vilnius who tested positive for the coronavirus in early January.
Her sample was sent for genome sequencing to a laboratory in Roterdam, the Netherlands. “On January 27, the National Public Health Laboratory received a confirmation that the sample contained the variant of SARS-CoV-2 with the B.1.1.7 mutation,” Vytautas Beniušis told BNS.
The woman most probably got the virus from a family member diagnosed with the disease earlier, according Lithuania's National Public Health Centre (NVSC), and had not travelled abroad before testing positive.
The family member had not travelled abroad either, according to the NVSC, and had not been in contact with anyone who had recently returned from another country.
“Three people in the household were then identified to have been in high-risk contact,” NVSC spokeswoman Justina Petravičienė said.
After receiving the confirmation of the UK variant, the NVSC retraced the family's contacts, even those that were considered low-risk. “People who had contact were registered for PGR tests,” according to Petravičienė.
The woman with the UK variant of the virus has already recovered, the NVSC said.
Meanwhile the National Public Health Laboratory said hers is the only known case of the new variant in Lithuania.
The so-called UK variant was reported on December 19. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson then said the variant was 70-percent more infectious.
Following the announcement, Lithuania temporarily stopped air travel from the UK.
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