Covid: Vigilance urged in Conwy county after cluster of Covid variant cases

The World Health Organization has classified the coronavirus variant first found in India last year as a "variant of global concern"

Residents in parts of north Wales have been urged to be vigilant after a cluster of cases of the Indian Covid variant were confirmed.

Eighteen confirmed or presumed cases of the variant, which originated in India, have been found in Conwy county.

Richard Firth, of Public Health Wales, said cases had been found in the Llandudno Junction, Llandudno and Penrhyn Bay areas.

He said all cases were linked and no outbreak had currently been declared.

In a visit to Llandudno, First Minister Mark Drakeford said there were "under a hundred cases" of the variant of concern in Wales, including some in schools.

"At the moment we feel we're on top of it. We're right to be anxious because the spread across the border, the greater transmissibility - we won't be immune from it in Wales," he told the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Earlier this week Wales' chief medical officer Frank Atherton confirmed there were about 57 cases of the Indian variant, known formally as B.1.617.2.

The Welsh government had previously said most cases were in Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan, although it had been identified in all health board areas except Powys.

Mr Firth, consultant in health protection for Public Health Wales, said the cases in Conwy county showed people "should not become complacent, even as rates of the virus across Wales remain low".

A mobile testing unit has been set up at Conwy Business Centre until 6 June, he said.

Mr Firth said the current evidence was that the Indian variant was at least as easy to catch as the dominant Kent variant, but it might be slightly more transmissible. 

He said both the Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines were effective against it after two doses.