A new, potentially more infectious variant of the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 has been found in Britain in cases linked to South Africa, British Health Secretary Matt Hancock said.

South Africa’s health department said last week that a new genetic mutation of the virus had been discovered and might be responsible for a recent surge in infections there.

“Thanks to the impressive genomic capability of the South Africans, we’ve detected two cases of another new variant of coronavirus here in the U.K. Both are contacts of cases who have travelled from South Africa over the past few weeks”, - Hancock added.

Britain is already trying to curb the spread of a mutated strain of the virus which is up to 70% more transmissible, and further studies are being carried out on the new variant.