People queue to enter the departures area at Heathrow Airport in London, Britain, on Dec. 21, 2020.Photo:Xinhua

The coronavirus strain discovered in the UK has been detected in at least 60 countries, the World Health Organization said Wednesday, 10 more than a week ago.

With the global death toll now well past two million, and new variants of the virus causing deep concern, countries across the world are grappling with how to slow infections until vaccines become widely available.

The strain in South Africa, which like the one in the UK is believed to be more infectious, has now been reported in 23 countries and regions, the WHO also announced in its weekly update. 

It added that the number of new deaths climbed to a record high of 93,000 over the previous seven days, with 4.7 million new cases reported over the same period.

The strain in the UK, first detected in mid-December, is thought by the WHO to be between 50 and 70 percent more infectious than the original.

While more transmissible, the two variants are not thought to be more deadly and Pfizer and BioNTech have said their vaccines are effective against the mutation found on the virus variant discovered in the UK, known as B117.

The arrival of mass vaccination campaigns in the US and Europe had brought hope that the end of the pandemic was in sight. The European Union said on Tuesday it was aiming to inoculate 70 percent of its adult population before the end of August.

But many EU countries  have struggled to get their inoculation programs off the ground.