TOKYO, Feb 19 (Reuters) – Japanese health authorities have found more than 90 cases of a new strain of the COVID-19 virus, the Mainichi newspaper reported on Friday.

The variant is believed to have come from overseas but is different from strains that originated in Britain and South Africa, according to the report which cited Japan’s National Institute of Infectious Diseases.

Japan has reported 151 cases of variants from Britain, South Africa and Brazil, according to the health ministry. The nation has had more than 400,000 cases of COVID-19 with 7,194 fatalities. (Reporting by Rocky Swift; Editing by Christopher Cushing)

(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2021. Click For Restrictions – https://agency.reuters.com/en/copyright.html