South Korea: 3 cases of new COVID-19 variant identified

According to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA), South Korea has confirmed the first three cases of the new COVID-19 in the country.

South Korea is accelerating efforts to launch a coronavirus vaccination program, with its announced first detection of virus variants identified initially in Britain.

South Africa, meanwhile, reached critical milestones of one million coronavirus cases on Monday.

The KDCA said the trio arrived from the United Kingdom on 22 December.

"They arrived in the nation as a family living in London and the tests revealed the presence of the virus, they are now in quarantine," DGS said.

South Korean health experts are now analyzing biological material from another family of four, who come from the UK and have tested positive for coronavirus.

Earlier this month, UK health authorities announced that the country had identified a new version of the coronavirus that spreads faster than other Sars-Cov-2 virus strain. Several countries have suspended passenger travel from the United Kingdom to halt the spread of the new virus strain.

South Korea stopped flights to and from the UK on 23 December, but it is still possible to get from the UK to South Korea via other countries.

The new coronavirus version, which infects more quickly, but does not appear to be more deadly or has no concern for vaccines, has already been detected in many countries including Canada, Denmark, Belgium, Netherlands, South Africa and Australia.

There are over 10.2 million coronavirus cases across the world and the United States of America continue to be the worse affected country. Since the new variant of coronavirus identified in the UK, authorities have imposed lockdowns in several areas.