OREANDA-NEWS. All of the recent outbreaks of COVID-19 in South Korea have arisen due to the so-called GH strain, which is much faster and more contagious than previous subspecies of the new coronavirus. This was stated by the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC).

South Korea passed to a weakened quarantine regime at the beginning of May, but then the authorities had to reinforce security rules again due to the emergence of new local outbreaks.

In KCDC, the virus genome was sequenced from material from 526 patients, and the nucleotide sequence corresponding to the GH group was detected in 333 cases.

SARS-CoV-2 is classified into seven strains: S, V, L, G, GH, GR, and O (others), according to the virus genome database GISAID of the World Health Organization. It is considered that the GH strain, which is a mutation of strain S, spreads six times faster than other subspecies of the new virus. This strain appeared in Europe, North and South America, and regions of Africa, which means its foreign origin for South Korea.