OFFICIALS are continuing to trace passengers on a flight associated with a concerning variant of coronavirus in Scotland.
Health Secretary Jeane Freeman said 20 passengers on the BA1312 flight from London to Aberdeen have been contacted so far.
However she stressed there is no reason to believe the so-called Brazilian variant is circulating in Scotland.
Ms Freeman said there is therefore "nothing necessarily to say" it will have an impact on Scotland's exit from lockdown.
READ MORE: Covid briefing: Health Secretary Jeane Freeman confirms rise in cases
She said efforts to "identify and break any possible chains of transmission" are ongoing.
Dr Gregor Smith, Scotland's chief medical officer, said positive samples of the virus identified during tracing efforts will be "treated with urgency" to discover if they are the Brazilian variant.
He said results from this accelerated genomic sequencing process should be returned in a "matter of days".
Six UK cases of the concerning P1 variant first detected in the Brazilian city of Manaus have been identified: three in England and three in Scotland.
The three Scottish cases were found in asymptomatic passengers who flew into Aberdeen on January 29.
They were returning from Brazil via Paris and London and tested positive while self-isolating.
Genomic sequencing later identified the Brazilian strain of the virus.
Ms Freeman told the Scottish Government's Covid-19 briefing: "If you were on that flight and have not yet been contacted, you will be contacted shortly, so please wait for that.
"I want to stress that there is currently no reason to believe that the P1 variant of the virus is in circulation in Scotland, however, I hope this summary reassures you that we are doing everything we can and everything necessary to check whether this variant of the virus could have been transmitted within Scotland and to identify and break any possible chains of transmission."
She added: "We know that current vaccines are effective against the strains of the virus which have already been established in the UK.
"However, more work is required to determine that this remains the case for emerging strains of the virus, such as the one we are highlighting today from Brazil."
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