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The UK has detected two cases of another new variant of coronavirus, the health secretary Matt Hancock says.

The cases in London and northwest England are contacts of people who travelled to South Africa, where the variant was discovered.

Travel restrictions with South Africa have been imposed.

Anyone who has travelled there in the past fortnight, and anyone they have been in contact with, are being told to quarantine immediately.

The variant has been causing mounting concern in South Africa, where health minister Zweli Mkhize warned that "young, previously healthy people are now becoming very sick".

He said the country "cannot go through what we went through in the early days of the Aids pandemic".

The variant is still being analysed, but the data are consistent with it spreading more quickly.

It was detected for the first time in the UK on Tuesday.

'Explosive outbreaks'

This variant shares some similarities to the one that has already been detected in the UK, although they have evolved separately.

Both have a mutation - called N501Y - which is in a crucial part of the virus that it uses to infect the body's cells.

Prof Neil Ferguson, from Imperial College London, said: "I think the greatest concern of ours at the moment is the South African one.

"There's certainly anecdotal reports of explosive outbreaks for that virus and very steep increases in case numbers."

At the Downing Street press briefing, Mr Hancock said the new variant was "highly concerning" and that anyone told to quarantine must avoid "all contact with any other person whatsoever".

At the same briefing, he announced millions more people were being moved to Tier 4 on Boxing Day in an effort to control the virus.