Health officials say there is no indication that the new strain affects the immunogenicity of the newly licensed Covid-19 vaccine in China.

"No need to panic. The new nCoV strain has so far not had a significant change in pathogenicity compared to the previous strains," said Hua Van Ba, director of the Institute of Virus Disease Control at the Control Center.

This information comes a day after China licensed the use of the Covid-19 vaccine from the pharmaceutical company Sinopharm.

Chinese officials on December 31 confirmed the first case of B.1.1.7 strain in the country was a 23-year-old girl returning from the UK in mid-December.

Chinese medical experts tested the gene with the specimen on December 24 because she "has a history of traveling from the UK and some abnormal nucleic acid test results".

Results showed that nCoV strains in female patients were different from those that appeared in Wuhan and Shanghai.

On December 14, he announced the discovery of a new nCoV strain, with more than 20 mutations compared to the original version and 70% more infectious.

Dozens of countries around the world have reported new CoV infections.

Covid-19 broke out in December 2019, appeared in 218 countries and territories with more than 84 million cases, more than 1.8 million deaths and more than 59 million people recovered.