Last week, the National Health Laboratory (LNS) detected six new cases of the UK variant that is currently worrying numerous political leaders. This brings the total to 12 cases on Luxembourg soil.

Similarly to its European counterparts, the National Health Directorate is concerned about the spread of the UK variant since it is much more contagious compared to Covid-19.

According to the latest weekly report from the LNS' microbiology department published on Tuesday, six new cases of the UK variant were reported during the week of 11 to 17 January.
Dr Tamir Abdelrahman, who works for the LNS, stated that five new cases of the UK variant B.1.1.7 have been detected within 69 high quality sequences. A potential sixth case must be added to this, for which the sequencing quality did "not allow to be 100% sure", but still provided a high load of B.1.1.7 specific mutations.

Of the five new confirmed cases, three were detected by routine genomic surveillance, and two were detected when travellers returned to Luxembourg Airport.

Since the appearance of the first case in Luxembourg on 31 December 2020, the total number of UK variants discovered in the Grand Duchy has therefore risen to 12. Six had previously been detected by the LNS.

The report indicates that the new cases represent 7.2% of the strains in circulation, compared to only 3% the previous week.

At the same time, the National Health Laboratory points out that, to date, no cases of the South African and Japanese variants of the virus have been detected during sequencing in Luxembourg.