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Britain has now sequenced more than one million Covid samples in the global fight to track the constantly-evolving virus.
Tracking variants is of critical importance because it allows officials to monitor new and emerging versions of the disease.
Some of these variants could be deadlier strains than the original, such as the Delta variant which quickly became dominant in the UK.
Other variants of concern could be ones that evolve beyond the protection offered by vaccines, which could potentially reset the pandemic.
Data gathered from Covid genomes has already helped identify contain the spread of variants such as Beta, which emerged in South Africa.
Genetic sequencing of the virus enabled scientists to identify which genes made it more transmissible and potentially more resistant to vaccines.
The UK's 1,013,249 submitted Covid genome sequences now account for almost a quarter of all samples shared in the international community.
The UK has become the second nation to break the 1million mark for Covid genomes submitted to a global database. The database gathers genetic data on Covid from around the world and helps scientists keep track of variants of concern which could be deadlier or evolve beyond the protection offered by the currently available vaccines
This means the UK has submitted the second highest number of sequenced Covid genomes in the world, just behind the US (1.2million).
A distant third place is held by Germany (216,457).
The genomes were shared with the Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data database, which was set up in
