Brasilia, January 1 (RHC)--- Brazil has reported the first two cases of the British strain of the coronavirus, in the city of Sao Paulo.  The Dasa diagnostic laboratory reported that it detected the new strain in two people who had contracted coronavirus, and who underwent tests in Sao Paulo.

The laboratory indicated that the samples in which it detected the British strain were collected in mid-December, precisely when the United Kingdom published the first scientific information about the variant.

Dasa reported that it gave notice to the Secretariat of Sanitary Surveillance and the Adolfo Lutz Institute, one of the Brazilian institutions of reference in the studies on the coronavirus.  

The detection of the first infected with the British strain in Brazil occurs at a time when the South American giant accumulates about 194,000 deaths and 7,619,200 infections by coronavirus.

The so-called British variant, baptized as B.1.1.7, has already been registered in at least 17 countries and is characterized by a mutation that affects the way the virus fixes itself in human cells, which makes it much more contagious.