Vaccines need to be redesigned to prevent widespread transmission of coronavirus variants such as that first found in Manaus, Brazil, an infectious disease expert has said.

Professor Ravindra Gupta, a member of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group said it was “fantastic” that the mystery person infected with the Manaus variant had been found.

He told Times Radio: “But there will be people out there who have not been tracked and traced who have the variant and who may have transmitted it.”

Prof Gupta, an expert in clinical microbiology at the University of Cambridge, said it is “always a possibility” that the Manaus P1 variant could become dominant in the UK but it is “unlikely at the moment because, first of all, we have low rates of transmission and we have a virus that has a transmission advantage”.

He added: “On the other hand, once many of us have been vaccinated, the shift for evolutionary paths for the virus will become to avoid immunity rather than just to transmit rapidly, it will be a combination of both.”