from smuggling gangs. and coming up in the sport on the bbc news channel. mixed fortunes for british sides in europe defeat for celtic in germany means they fail to qualify from their europa league group. good evening. the health secretary, sajid javid, says scientists are deeply concerned about a new variant of coronavirus that s been discovered in south africa. as yet it hasn t been detected here in the uk, but the government is now suspending all flights from south africa, namibia, zimbabwe, botswana, lesotho and eswatini. 59 cases have been confirmed so far, and speaking in the last hour, mrjavid said the variant may be the most infectious yet. from what we do know there s a significant number of mutations, perhaps double the number of mutations that we have seen in the delta variant. and that would suggest that it may well be more transmissible and the current vaccines that we have may well be less effective. our medical editor fergus walsh is here. do we have any idea
of a new covid 19 variant which may have properties that help the virus to evade the body s immune response. only 59 cases have been identified so far in botswana, hong kong, and the majority in south africa. it has not yet been declared a variant of concern by the world health organization. but virologists in britain are describing it as a deeply concerning variant, and the uk has just announced new travel restrictions in a bid to halt any potential spread. here s the british health secretary, sajid javid. earlier today, the south african government held a press conference, and they talked about a new variant that they have found called b11529. i ve been updated on this variant by the uk health security agency, and they have now designated it as a variant under investigation. the early indications we have of this variant is that it may be more transmissible than the delta variant, and the vaccines that we currently have may be less effective against it. now to be clear