BASSETERRE, St.Kitts (Thursday 1st June 2021)-The type of COVID-19 variant circulating in St.Kitts and Nevis, called Lambda, is prevalent in South America countries, and is of interest to the World Health Organization (WHO).

The disclosure was made by the Chief Medical officer Dr. Hazel Laws during the health situation report at the National Emergency Operation Center (NEOC) COVID-19 Daily Briefing held on Saturday 26th June 2021.

“We’ve gotten a number of questions regarding the genomic sequencing process, and so we shared with you about 3-4 weeks ago that we sent off samples to the Caribbean Public Health Agency for genomic sequencing. So the result just returned and I want to share with you the SARS -2 variant that is in circulation in the Federation at present.”

Dr. Laws indicated that reports say that the SARS-2 variant belongs to the lineage B.1.1.1 or C.37. The World Health Organization’s label for this variant is the Lambda variant.

She went on to say that it is “classified as a variant of interest” by the WHO.“

The SARS-2 variant was first identified in Peru in August of last year, and to date it has been identified in over 29 countries. It is quite prevalent in the South American Countries including Argentina,” the CMO shared.

Local health officials say Lambda is more transmissible.