Boris Johnson has warned coronavirus variants could lead to a new wave of disease worse than endured in the UK in January.
The Tory Prime Minister said it was a "high likelihood" there could be spike in cases across the country over the winter months.
Highlighting particular concern about the Indian variant, which experts believe could be even more transmissible than the Kent strain, Johnson issued caution.
He warned that "new variants pose a potentially lethal danger, including the one first identified in India which is of increasing concern here in the UK".
The European Medicines Agency also said it was "monitoring very closely the data on the Indian variant" but there was "promising evidence" that mRNA vaccines - the types those produced by Pfizer and Moderna - would be able to neutralise it.
Concerns around the Indian variant are focused on the ease with which it spreads, rather than it being able to evade vaccines.
In the House of Commons earlier today, Johnson said, "the end of the lockdown is not the end of the pandemic".
"The World Health Organisation has said that the pandemic has now reached its global peak and will last throughout this year," the Prime Minister added.
"Our own scientific advisers judge that although more positive data is coming in and the outlook is improving, there could still be another resurgence in hospitalisations and deaths.
"We also face the persistent threat of new variants and should these prove highly transmissible and elude the protection of our vaccines, they would have the potential to cause even greater suffering than we endured in January."
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