On Thursday, US officials announced that the South African variant of COVID-19 was detected in the country in two residents of South Carolina who had no international or domestic travel history. 

The acting director of the state’s public health department, Brannon Traxler said in a statement, “The arrival of the SARS-CoV-2 variant in our state is an important reminder to all South Carolinians that the fight against this deadly virus is far from over.”

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The new variant, identified as B.1.351, has been detected in more than 30 countries around the world while other countries taking further precautions to prevent the spread of the virus. 

A statement released by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) vowed that the department is making efforts to enhance the national system of the US to detect similar mutations. 

The US currently is lacking in terms of detecting capacity for new variants of COVID-19. 

Due to some of the characteristics like the resistance of the antibodies created through the various vaccines, the South African variant is riskier than the variant identified in the UK, according to experts. 

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The B.1.351 variant of COVID-19 does not come along with evidence that shows the virus is deadlier, however, it is assumed that the variant will cause the cases to surge. 

On Monday, officials in Minnesota announced the first case of another more transmissible variant, P.1, in a person who had recently returned from Brazil.