PARIS, Feb 10 (Reuters) – More contagious variants of the new coronavirus are taking hold in France but their spread is not currently as fast as initially feared, Bruno Lina, a French virus specialist and a member of the scientific body advising the government, said on Wednesday.

“For now, we have the feeling the introduction of these variants is somewhat curtailed”, Lina told France Inter radio.

He added that the variant first detected in Britain now accounted for around 30-35% of COVID-19 cases in Paris/Ile-de-France region, and that the one stemming from South Africa represented 2-3% of COVID-19 cases in France at present. (Reporting by Benoit Van Overstraeten; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta)

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