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Genomes per 1000 cases

SARS-CoV-2 genomes per 1000 cases of COVID-19

Published: 22 January 2021

The figure reports the number of sequenced SARS-CoV-2 genomes for 1000 cases of COVID-19 in different countries. Only countries for which 1000 or more genomes are available from public repositories are represented.
Genomes per 1000 cases
The X axis represents the number of genomes. The maximum value is 1000, since the data is scaled by thousands of reported COVID-19 cases. Data is sorted in descending order, from the country with the highest value to the country with the lowest value. The proportion of genomes sequence in each country is represented by the bars. The text in red indicates the values represented in the graph.

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 defense 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. To be effective, a genomic surveillance system requires that a significant proportion of the genomes of the pathogens circulating in a specific country/geographic area are sequenced systematically in a short interval of time. The graph provides exactly this information, and reports for every single country, the number of pathogen genomic sequences that have been fully determined, by thousands of COVID-19 cases reported by national health authorities. This graph should provide an overview of how powerful genomic surveillance systems currently are in different countries.

Sources: https://covid19.who.int/table (COVID-19 cases), https://www.gisaid.org/ and https://www.covid19dataportal.org/ (SARS-CoV-2 genomes)