A new variant of coronavirus has been identified and designated “under investigation” in the UK.

VUI-202103/01 was labelled a “variant under investigation” (VUI) on March 4 after two cases were found in the south-east of England.

Both were in individuals who had recently travelled to Antigua.

Public Health England (PHE) says contact tracing teams have completed “thorough investigations” to identify and follow up any close contacts and no additional cases have been found to date.

There are two classifications for Covid variants identified by Nervtag (the government’s new and emerging respiratory viruses advisory group). The more serious is “variant of concern” (VOC).

Variants of concern in the UK include the Brazil (Manaus) variant, the South Africa variant and the Bristol variant.