The South African variant of coronavirus is circulating in the community in Wales with no link to international travel, Wales' health minister Vaughan Gething has said.
He was speaking at the Welsh coronavirus press briefing at 12.15pm on Wednesday (February 3), detailing what was being done to tackle the South African coronavirus variant. Follow live updates from there here.
Officials had previously said there were 10 confirmed cases of the more infectious South African version of Covid-19 in Wales, all linked to travel. Current vaccines do not give the same breadth of immunity to the new variant although they provide some protection.
Mr Gething revealed that three more had since been identified which had no known link to South Africa or international travel. The cases are in Anglesey, Conwy and Neath Port Talbot. He said work was urgently being carried out to establish how those three people contracted the variant.
He said: "Two of these cases are in North Wales – in Anglesey and in Conwy. They have the same genetic sequence and they were tested on the same day in the same laboratory. The third case is in Neath Port Talbot.
"Public Health Wales is carrying out a detailed and forensic investigation into each of these cases to discover when and how each person became infected with the South African variant strain and whether there is any evidence of wider community spread.
"In each case, we will draw on the skills of our successful contact tracing teams to look back at where each case has been and who they’ve been in close contact with. We will use the skills of Public Health Wales’ epidemiologists and we will also use targeted testing to identify any further spread.
"We are working around the clock to discover how these three people became infected with the South African variant and we will do everything we can to keep people safe."
Parts of England have been singled out for "surge testing" following fears the variant is spreading in the community.
The Welsh Government said it would not be doing entire community testing.
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Mr Gething said that the emergence of new strains meant it was more important than ever to follow the rules.
He said: The emergence of all these new strains – first the Kent strain, which has quickly become the dominant form of coronavirus in Wales, and now the South African and two Brazilian variants – mean it’s more important than ever that we all follow the rules, especially the basics."
