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GISAID.

SARS-CoV-2 genomes available from GISAID as of March 31st 2021.

Published: 16 April 2021

The figure reports the number of SARS-CoV-2 genomic sequences available from the GISAID portal. Only countries for which 1000 or more genomes are available are represented. Blue: “novel” genomes, submitted between Feb 27th and Mar 31st 2021. Gray: genomes available in GISAID before Feb 27th 2021.
GISAID.
The X-axis represents the number of genomes. To facilitate the comparison data is Log(10) scaled. The number of genomes sequenced by each country is represented by the bars, values represented by each bar are indicated in red. Gray: genomes available in GISAID before Feb 27th 2021. Blue: “novel” genomes, submitted between Feb 27th and Mar 31th 2021.

This figure provides an overview of the number of SARS-CoV-2 genomic sequences available in the GISAID database for different countries. Two different colors are used to highlight:

From the figure it is possible to observe that several countries, including Italy, have produced and submitted an increased number of “novel” sequences during last month, indicating an increased capacity to produce and analyse genome sequencing data. Unsurprisingly, several countries where the number of reported cases of COVID-19 is close to zero, such as China, Iceland and Israel did not share any sequence between Feb 27th and Mar 31st.

The substantial increase in the number of genomes available for many countries demonstrates a clear improvement in “genomic surveillance” plans both at the national and international levels. The availability of an increasing amount of data will allow more careful monitoring of the evolution of the virus and facilitate a more rapid and precise identification of novel potentially dangerous variants.

Source: GISAID