Further cases of the Indian coronavirus variant have been identified in the UK, with the Indian Covid variant now the dominant strain in 23 areas of England.
Eighty-six local authorities are now reporting five or more confirmed cases, ministers have said.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock told the House of Commons on Monday that while the B1617.2 variant seemed more transmissible, the evidence suggested vaccines were effective against it.
Mr Hancock said the variant had become the dominant strain in parts of the North West of England.
A range of measures are being taken to tackle its spread, including accelerating second doses of vaccines for people over 50 and the clinically vulnerable, he added.
Mr Hancock told the Commons there were now 2,323 confirmed cases of B1617.2 in the UK - of which 483 were in Bolton and Blackburn with Darwen, where it is now the dominant strain.
He said cases there had doubled in the last week and were rising in all age groups.
Mr Hancock also told MPs there were 86 local authorities where there are five or more confirmed cases, with Bedford the "next biggest cause of concern".
Full list of areas where the Indian variant is dominant
The May 13 technical briefing to government science advisers SAGE was published late last week and provides a breakdown of rates of the Indian variant by local authority area in England, in the period May 2-8.
The Mirror has compiled a list of areas with five or more cases of the variant, known as B.1.617.2, where the Indian variant makes up more than 50% of those cases.
The list below is ordered by English local authority area, by the number of Indian variant cases, then the percentage of cases of the strain from all genome-sequenced infections in that location.
The areas are ranked by the highest number of Indian Covid variant cases ('S gene') during that week.
Reads from left to right: Local authority name, number of classifiable cases, number S gene cases and percent S gene cases.
- Bolton 404 350 86.6
- Blackburn with Darwen 128 110 85.9
- Sefton 116 105 90.5
- Bedford 84 71 84.5
- Nottingham 73 52 71.2
- South Northamptonshire 32 25 78.1
- Hillingdon 26 23 88.5
- Hounslow 27 21 77.8
- Central Bedfordshire 36 19 52.8
- Brent 27 15 55.6
- Chorley 21 13 61.9
- Camden 16 12 75
- Bury 23 12 52.2
- Chelmsford 12 11 91.7
- East Northamptonshire 15 11 73.3
- Croydon 13 10 76.9
- Burnley 20 10 50
- Canterbury 10 9 90
- Welwyn Hatfield 12 8 66.7
- Bromley 12 8 66.7
- Greenwich 15 8 53.3
- Newham 13 7 53.8
- West Lancashire 8 6 75
- Lewisham 12 6 50
- Rushmoor 5 5 100
- Slough 5 5 100
- Reading 7 5 71.4
