Countries that have reported new variants of COVID-19

 Three new variants of COVID-19 have been detected in recent weeks, leading to increased vigilance across the world as officials say a variant found in the United Kingdom could be up to 70 percent more transmissible.

However, none of the variants so far has been found to be more fatal, or more likely to be able to evade vaccines or treatments. A new variant was first reported in the United Kingdom on December 14. Named VUI-202012/01 (the first Variant Under Investigation in December 2020), it is thought to have first appeared in mid-September.

Referred to by some experts as the B117 lineage, this has rapidly become the dominant strain in cases of COVID-19 in many parts of the UK. Last week, South Africa reported another new strain which appears to have mutated further than the UK variant.

Known as 501.V2, this variant is dominant among new confirmed infections in South Africa. On December 24, the head of Africa’s disease control body said another COVID-19 strain, known as the P681H was identified in Nigeria. It is of a separate lineage from the other mutations but does not seem to be spreading as fast as the other two new variants.