MOSCOW, April 6. /TASS/. A third wave of the pandemic in Russia may theoretically be triggered by a more contagious virus strain, the acting director of the Smorodintsev Research Institute of Influenza, Dmitry Lioznov, said on Tuesday.

"If we bear in mind that the British strain has a higher reproductive index, and if it begins to spread actively now, theoretically a third wave may be linked with the emergence of a more virulent variety," Lioznov said at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ scientific session Nanotechnologies and Information Technologies for Effective Resistance to COVID-19 and Other New Dangerous Infections.

The chief of the consumer rights watchdog Rospotrebnadzor, Anna Popova, said 103 cases of infection with the British coronavirus strain and ten cases of infection with the South African strain had been exposed in Russia.