Until recently, South Africa had seen a period of relatively low transmission, and was typically recording about 200 confirmed cases per day. But the daily number of infections rapidly rose above 1,200 on Wednesday alone - and almost doubled again to 2,465 on Thursday.
Scientists in the country are now trying to determine the extent of its spread, but this could take some time.
"As I've said, especially when, like the Delta starting in Gauteng, you can rest assured as people start to move even more over the next few weeks, this will be all over." British officials are keen to acquire live virus cultures of the new variant so it can be examined, but this could take as long as four to six weeks.
South Africa has a population of 60 million people. During the pandemic, it has recorded more than 2.9 million COVID cases and 89,000 deaths.
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