Turkish university analyzes sequence of COVID-19 genome

A Turkish university on Thursday announced that its scientists and academics have made a sequence analysis of the COVID-19 genome.

In a statement, Uludag University in the western Bursa province said the university's academics took an important step towards analyzing and defeating the virus.

It said the analysis shows the "spike" protein that helps the isolated virus enter the cell carries a mutation known as D614G.

The university underlined that scientific studies on a global scale continue to determine whether the viruses carrying this mutation are more or less contagious.

It also said over 95,000 sequence analyses of virus genomes have been uploaded on GenBank and GISAID portals and Turkey has been a part of these efforts with 194 samples, including one from Bursa.

Stressing the importance of sequence analyses of virus genomes, the university said epidemiological and molecular research might be accelerated in this way.

The university officials said they took permission from the Ethics Committee of the Ministry of Health to enlarge the research.

Across the world, COVID-19 has claimed almost 904,500 lives in 188 countries and regions since last December.

The US, India, Brazil, Russia, and Peru are currently the worst-hit countries.

Nearly 28 million COVID-19 cases have been reported worldwide, with recoveries of some 18.8 million, according to figures compiled by the US' Johns Hopkins University.