The UK Government has announced a further 16.1 million dollars (12.2 million pounds) in funding for research of the SARS-CoV-2 virus’ genome structure in an effort to prevent the future spread of COVID-19, an Official said.

This is according to a statement published by the Department of Health and Social Care on Monday.

The funds will be used to expand the whole genome sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 to assess how the virus spreads and evolves as the UK experiences a surge in the number of new cases of the coronavirus disease, according to the statement.

“The rising number of COVID-19 cases in the UK requires an expansion of the national SARS-CoV-2 genome sequencing capacity to ensure that the benefits of using genome sequence data can be realised in a rapid and robust manner,’’ the statement read.

The funding will be distributed to the COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium, which has already generated and published more than 100,000 SARS-CoV-2 genomes, the department said.

Since the start of the pandemic, more than 1.36 million cases of COVID-19 had been registered in the UK by the Department of Health and Social Care.

The number of deaths reported in the UK that have COVID-19 on the death certificates currently stands at 61,648, according to department data.

On Sunday, public health officials in the United Kingdom registered 24,962 new positive tests for the coronavirus disease.

NAN