Hunt launched for carrier of Brazil Covid strain in UK

London - There are fears that new Covid strains could hamper the UK's vaccine rollout

Britain on Monday appealed for a person infected with a powerful Covid-19 strain from Brazil to come forward as experts fretted about its impact on new vaccines.

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The public appeal came a week before England is due to start unwinding its third Covid lockdown, with progress hinging on the vaccines' ability to curtail the pandemic.

The variant that emerged in Manaus, northern Brazil, has been detected in six people in the UK, one of whom cannot be located after they failed to fill in their contact details on a form after taking their coronavirus test.

"We are working with several data points to try and locate them, not least, of course, to try and highlight anyone who has had a test on (February) 12 to come forward if they haven't had a result," vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi told BBC television.

He said community-wide "surge testing" was starting in South Gloucestershire, western England, after two of the Manaus cases were confirmed there.

Experts warned that based on data from Brazil, the variant was both more transmissible and better at evading antibodies than the UK's predominant strain which emerged in the southeastern county of Kent last September.

Danny Altmann, professor of immunology at Imperial College in London, said the public should feel "somewhat worried but not total panic" about the emergence in Britain of the Manaus variant.

"It's not that all immunity is gone, it's that the vaccines look so much less potent, so there'll be more people who have low antibody responses where it can break through and get affected," he told Times Radio.