Britain could accelerate its vaccine rollout in areas where a highly infectious coronavirus variant first detected in India has emerged, a move meant to prevent it from derailing a planned economic reopening, Reuters reports.

The emergence of the highly infectious B.1.617.2 variant in parts of northern England and London has threatened a planned full reopening due to take place in June, prompting a rethink on ways to speed up the vaccination drive.

"We will flex the vaccination deployment wherever possible to deal with this new variant," vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi told Times Radio. "It is clearly more infectious because infections have gone up in a week from 520 to 1,313."