Patients with the COVID 19 Coronavirus, sit in a room and are given oxygen in the COVID-19 ward at Khayelitsha Hospital, about 35km from the centre of Cape Town, on December 29, 2020. (Photo by RODGER BOSCH / AFP)
France has detected its first case of the South African variant of coronavirus, the health ministry said on Thursday.
The 501.V2 Variant was detected by South African authorities in mid-December.
Cases have since been found in Japan and Britain among others.
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The variant, believed to be more easily transmitted like another version found in Britain, was discovered in France in a man who had returned from South Africa to his home in the Haut-Rhin region which borders Switzerland.
South Africa is the country hit hardest by coronavirus on the African continent, with over one million infections so far and 26,000 people dead.
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