The British strain of coronavirus has not yet been detected in Ukraine, a new batch of samples has been sent to the WHO laboratory, Deputy Minister of Health, Chief Sanitary Doctor of Ukraine Viktor Liashko said.

"We are studying this issue. This issue should be confirmed or denied by WHO. Now we are sending 200 new virus isolates to the WHO laboratory, which is located in the Charite clinic in Germany. Until now, this strain has not been found in Ukraine," he told Interfax-Ukraine.

Liashko said that the mutation of the virus, in particular, may affect the implementation of the planned quarantine measures.

"Take the example of the UK, which went into quarantine even before we went into weekend quarantine. They planned to open on December 2 to celebrate the New Year and Christmas holidays, which start on December 25, and to celebrate without quarantine, but they considered the possibility second repeated lockdown. As practice later showed, they came out of quarantine without reducing the incidence. The reason was the emergence of a new strain of coronavirus, which is more easily transmitted from person to person, this led to an outbreak," he said.