The British strain of coronavirus was detected in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Dnipro and Lviv as part of the joint monitoring of the circulation of new strains of SARS-CoV-2, which is carried out by the pharmaceutical company JSC Farmak, the Hromashevsky Institute of Epidemiology and Infectious Diseases with the participation of the Center for Public Health.
Farmak, the tests of which are being monitored, told Interfax-Ukraine that a representative sample was taken with the help of its own PCR test system from different regions of Ukraine and analyzed using NGS (next generation sequencing).
“As a result, the British strain SARS-CoV-2 was detected in samples from Kyiv, Kharkiv, Dnipro and Lviv. At present, a bioinformatic analysis of the results is being carried out to study other mutations of the virus that are unique for Ukraine,” the company said.
A number of samples were taken from children who were hospitalized with pneumonia at the main regional children’s clinical hospital in Kharkiv.
As reported, early March, a team of Ukrainian researchers, which included scientists from the Farmak pharmaceutical company and the Hromashevsky Institute of Epidemiology and Infectious Diseases, presented their own PCR test capable of detecting even new strains of the Sars-Cov-2 coronavirus.
The quality of the new test kit is confirmed by the relevant findings of the Hromashevsky Institute of Epidemiology and Infectious Diseases of the Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine (Kyiv) and the Mechnikov Institute of Microbiology and Immunology of the Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine (Kharkiv). Reference trials of the PCR test kit are carried out in private and public laboratories in Ukraine (Kharkiv, Dnipro, Zaporizhia, Vinnytsia), confirming its effectiveness.
Farmak said that the new test kit has opened up to pre-purchasing.
Farmak is a member of the Association Manufacturers of Medications of Ukraine (AMMU).
