Coronavirus evolves, divides into 2 groups in Vietnam: study

(Xinhua) – Vietnamese researchers have found that the coronavirus causing the COVID-19 pandemic had evolved and divided into two different groups in the country, daily newspaper Vietnam News reported on Monday.

The virus that Vietnam isolated on COVID-19 cases coming from Europe was found to be different from the one on patients found in Asia, the newspaper quoted Le Thi Quynh Mai, deputy director of the county’s National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, as saying.

The institute’s study has yet to show which of the two groups is more infectious as the spread of the virus also depended on the environment, geography and people infected, while detecting the changes of the virus would aid vaccine production, she was cited as saying.

Vietnam has confirmed 245 COVID-19 cases as of Monday evening, with no deaths recorded in the country so far, according to the health ministry.