Indonesia has detected two cases of the more infectious Covid-19 variant first discovered in Britain, Reuters quoted officials as saying on Tuesday, marking a potential new complication for the country as it tries to contain one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks in Asia.

Dante Saksono Harbuwono, the deputy health minister, said the discovery of the variant, known as B117, represented a new challenge.

“We’ll be facing this pandemic with a higher degree of difficulty,” he told a streamed conference.

Wiku Adisasmito, the spokesman for Indonesia’s Covid-19 task force, said that monitoring at arrival gates in the country would be tightened in a bid to keep the variant from spreading.