Today the Health Secretary will announce the UK’s expertise will be offered to other countries around the world to help them to identify new variants of COVID-19 – enabling them to identify changes in the virus and providing an early warning system for new mutations that could endanger the UK. 

Throughout this pandemic we have relied on the strength of the UK world-leading scientific community, as we see new variants emerging internationally it is only right that the UK plays our part in identifying them, helping our neighbours and keeping people around the world safe.

That is why the Government are launching the New Variant Assessment Platform, which will offer UK laboratory capacity to support the work of the World Health Organisation and others. Through this platform we can build on our understanding of the virus and how it spreads in different places, strengthening our ability to protect people here in the UK and around the world.

The UK has led the way in gene sequencing and identified more than half of all the coronavirus strains since the pandemic began. By sharing our expertise with others, we can boost capability in this important field and better prepare everyone in the future.