THE new Indian variant of Covid-19 is being ‘well managed’, the First Minister has said.

At the Welsh Government briefing on April 23, First Minister Mark Drakeford confirmed there are eight confirmed cases of the Indian variant in Wales.

These are all traced to people with Welsh addresses and are known to local teams.

Mr Drakeford said all individuals have been contacted by health officials and are being assisted.

However, he stressed it is being ‘well managed’ and there is no cause for ‘wider concern’, but added it is important India remains on the ‘red list’ for travel.

First Minister Mark Drakeford said he hoped the coronavirus situation in India gave the UK Government “real pause for thought” about reopening international travel on May 17.

Mr Drakeford told the PA news agency: “We have cases of the Indian variant in Wales, as we’ve had cases of the South African variant.

“The UK Government has a very important decision to make about May 17 and the reopening of international travel.

“I really hope that what we’ve seen in India in the last week will give them real pause for thought, and that we don’t run the risk of opening up international travel too quickly on too broad a front, and that results in the virus coming back into Wales.”

Earlier this week India was added to the coronavirus travel 'red list' in response to concern about the number of cases there and the emergence of a new variant.

The Welsh Government's Technical Advisory Group also gave an update earlier this week on some of the other variants that have been discovered in Wales.

As of April 16 in Wales, there had been 35 ‘confirmed and probable’ cases of the South African variant, with ten cases of the Nigerian variant and one case of the variant first discovered in Japan in visitors from Brazil.

The move to add India to the red list was announced just hours after Boris Johnson was forced to cancel a trip to the country and came into force at 4am on Friday.

People returning after Friday will be forced to quarantine in a hotel for 10 days and anyone who is not a UK or Irish resident or a British citizen will be banned from entering the country if they have been in India in the previous 10 days.

The variant – also known as B.1.617 – was first noted internationally in October and first identified in the UK on February 22.

It has 13 mutations, including two in the virus’s spike protein, known as E494Q and L452R.

On Thursday, India reported more than 314,000 new infections – the worst daily sum of the pandemic anywhere in the world.

Understaffed hospitals are struggling with the number of patients and there are concerns about the supply of oxygen.

Thursday’s cases raised India’s total to above 15.9 million since the pandemic began – the second-highest total in the world after the United States.

The country’s overall coronavirus death toll stands at more than 186,000, according to the Johns Hopkins University’s count.