Argentina detects first cases of Brazilian coronavirus variants

Argentina has detected the first cases of two Brazilian variants of the coronavirus in travelers from the neighboring nation, the government said on Monday.

"The Amazonas P1 variant was recently detected in two samples, and the Rio de Janeiro P2 variant in two other travelers. All of them from Brazil," Argentina's Minister of Health Ginés González García said in a tweet.

Argentina, which is ramping up its vaccination program with Russia's Sputnik V vaccine, has recorded nearly 2 million confirmed cases of COVID-19, with a total of 49,171 deaths.