The Ministry of Health (MoH) said Monday the laboratory within the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts (MANU) has detected the UK variant of the coronavirus in 45 samples of infected persons between 1 January-7 February 2021.

The first patient with this variant of the virus in this laboratory was diagnosed on January 13, 2021 in Ohrid and since then its prevalence has been progressively increasing. At the moment, this variant of the virus is most frequent in Ohrid and Prilep, and has been also detected in certain patients in other cities: Tetovo, Struga, Kumanovo, Stip, Veles, said the Health Ministry.

The Health Ministry also informed that MANU’s analyzes did not detect the presence of the UK variant of the virus in the employees of the Nephrology Clinic, where several health workers were infected in a short period of time