Researchers have detected five cases of the Indian Covid-19 variant in Kenya.

The health ministry says the tests were done before the ban on flights to India was imposed.

The five cases were identified from samples collected in people working in a fertiliser plant in western Kenya.

The country temporarily suspended passenger flights to India two weeks ago. Dr Patrick Amoth from the health ministry says the ban couldn’t have stopped this happening.

India is currently experiencing the worst Covid-19 surge in the world, with hundreds of thousands of new cases being reported every day.

Despite this, the World Health Organization is yet to classify the Indian strain as a “variant of concern”.

Kenya is now the second African country after Uganda to identify the Indian variant.