Survey: Variants Account For 4.5% Of New Cases
Japan's health ministry says tests have found that variants of the coronavirus account for 4.5 percent of the recent cases in the country.
The ministry says preliminary figures from local governments show that 1,234 virus carriers took PCR tests for the variants in the week to February 28. That's about 17 percent of the nationwide new cases.
Of them, 56 people were found to have the mutated virus.
The ministry asks local authorities to take samples from 5 to 10 percent of newly infected people and test them for the variants.
By region, 16 out of 55 people tested in Hyogo Prefecture carried them.
The number of variant carriers was 10 among 25 test-takers in Kanagawa Prefecture, and four out of 52 in Osaka Prefecture.
In Tokyo, none of 61 infected people who took the test had the variants.
The ministry says the data cannot be used to estimate the percentage of the variants in total, because there are some cases where people around infected individuals were actively tested.
Ministry officials say they will step up monitoring so they can detect the mutated virus at an early stage.