SARS-CoV-2 genomes per 1000 cases pf COVID-19. March 31st update.
Published: 16 April 2021
SARS-CoV-2 is the etiological agent (the pathogen that causes the disease) of COVID-19. Sequencing the genome of the pathogen allows the monitoring of its evolution and the identification of novel strains or new variants. This approach is known as “genomic surveillance” and represents the first line of defence against the spread of more dangerous variants of the virus, and at the same time can provide useful indications for the development of novel vaccines or drugs.
An effective genomic surveillance system requires the rapid and systematic sequencing of a significant proportion of the genomes of the pathogen. The graph provides exactly this information and reports the number of available pathogen genomic sequences, by thousands of COVID-19 cases reported by national health authorities in different countries worldwide. This graph should provide an overview of how powerful genomic surveillance systems currently are in different countries.
The “main” figure of this highlight is based on genomic sequence metadata, as available on March 31st 2021. To facilitate comparison, and illustrate recent developments an equivalent figure based on data available up to March 1st 2021 (previous update) is reported below.
By comparing the two figures it is possible to observe that, in the last month, the proportion of genomes sequenced per 1000 cases of COVID-19 has increased steadily for most, if not all, the countries considered in our analyses. Consistent with this observation, we witness an increase (from 26 to 40) in the number of countries for which 1000 (minimum threshold for the inclusion in this report) or more SARS-CoV-2 genomic sequences are available. This is an indication that the efforts to monitor the evolution of the pathogen through the sequencing of its genome have been increased significantly both nationally and globally.
Although some countries are still a long way from sequencing the viral genome for 5% of the reported cases of COVID-19, as recommended by several health authorities, it is reasonable to believe that this goal can be achieved in a not so distant future.
These analyses are based on data, as available on March 31st 2021.