Coronavirus: Cathay Pacific pilots’ infections show ‘highly similar’ genetic sequencing, as second ‘Delta Plus’ case emerges in Hong Kong
- Latest person found with ‘Delta Plus’ variant was seated next to first patient in city on a recent British Airways flight
- Revelations come as city confirms three new imported Covid-19 cases and queues of residents seeking booster shots form outside vaccination centres
The Centre for Health Protection on Thursday also revealed that a traveller who sat near the city’s first patient with the “Delta Plus” coronavirus variant on a flight also carried that strain, raising concerns over whether in-flight transmission had taken place.
The pilots, who were among Wednesday’s confirmed cases, had infections that belonged to a sub-lineage of the Delta variant called “AY.43”, authorities said.
“Both of them were Delta strain with highly similar but not identical genetic sequences,” the centre said, adding the variant was commonly seen in Europe, especially in Germany, and the two might have been infected outside Hong Kong.
Professor Leo Poon Lit-man, who was involved in the genome sequencing analysis, said the findings suggested the pair could have caught the virus from the same source.
“If there are slight differences between them, we cannot rule out that they acquired the virus from the same source at the same time,” said Poon, head of the University of Hong Kong’s public health laboratory sciences division.
He added that if the virus had been passed from one pilot to another, the genetic sequencing should have been identical.