COPENHAGEN (Reuters) – Denmark found its first case of a more contagious variant of coronavirus from South Africa on Saturday, seeing a rise in infections with the highly communicable B117 variant first identified in Britain, health authorities said.
The Nordic country extended a three-week lockdown on Wednesday in an attempt to stem the spread of the new variant from Britain, which authorities expect to be the dominant one by mid-February.
Denmark has become a leader in monitoring coronavirus mutations by performing most of the positive tests through genome sequence analysis.
Between mid-November and January 10, 256 Danes were infected with the new variant from Britain, the State Serum Institute (SSI) said in a report published Saturday.
That was equivalent to 1.3% of all positive tests that were genetically analyzed during that period.
In the first week of January, the percentage share of positive tests with the mutation was 3.6%, a growth rate that troubled authorities and prompted the extension of the lockdown.
Preliminary data showed that 11 of those infected with the variant had traveled prior to the infection, including five in Great Britain, but SSI said it was unclear whether they were infected abroad or in Denmark.
Later on Saturday, SSI announced that the first case of infection with another, more contagious variant first found in South Africa had also been recorded in someone who had traveled to Dubai.
Reporting by Nikolaj Skydsgaard; Editing by John Stonestreet and Helen Popper