Teams of public health officials in Hertfordshire are to take Covid-19 testing door-to-door, after a case of the South African strain of the virus was found in the county.

The patient, from Broxbourne, is one of a number of people nationwide who have been found to have the strain, but who have no links to travel - sparking concerns the variant could be being spread within the community.

The government has announced plans for 'surge' testing in all affected areas, in a bid to to establish how widespread it already is and to contain further spread.

And as a result public health officials in Hertfordshire have launched ambitious plans to swab test up to 10,000 residents in the E10 postcode area.

Two mobile test sites have already been set up to offer test appointments, with other venues making tests available for collection to take at home.

And from Thursday (February 4) officials will go door-to-door in the EN10 area, to ensure everyone has had access to a test.

Meanwhile waste water samples will be tested locally, as part of a further bid to detect the prevalence and variance of the virus.

And those results could be used to identify other areas where widespread testing may be necessary.

Speaking at a media briefing on Monday (February 1), Hertfordshire director of public health Jim McManus said the cases identified around the country – in eight different authorities – could indicate a risk of community spread.

"We have one case in Hertfordshire and that's in the EN10 area of Broxbourne," he said.

"And thankfully that person is on the mend, which is the most important thing of all.

"This could indicate that there's a risk – if there genuinely isn't any link to travel – of community spread."

Mr McManus said that 10,000 people in the EN10 postcode area would be offered the swab test.

The samples would then analysed in a laboratory, with genomic sequencing being used to identify the variant.

And anyone who tests positive for the variant – who may be asymptomatic – will be asked to self-isolate.

Then detailed contact tracing will be used to offer further tests to anyone that they may have been in contact with.

Although the South African variant is known to be more easily transmitted, Mr McManus says there is not yet any evidence that the disease is more severe – or that it evades the vaccine.

And he urged people to be "focussed, not fearful" – focussed on preventing spread, not frightened about new variant.

He stressed that treating everyone else as if they were infected, keeping a distance of two metres, hand-washing and using face coverings would work against the spread of the virus.

And he stressed that the more people that were tested could ultimately impact on the length of the lockdown.

"The more we control the virus the quicker we will come out of lockdown," he said.

"And actually the more people we identify – the more we self isolate – the sooner we can suppress the virus.

"And that means actually the more people you test the more likely you are to come out of lockdown – not the longer you stay in it."

Meanwhile Cllr Tim Hutchings the county council's executive member for public health and prevention said: "If we can resolve this one and resolve it quickly, our chances of coming out of lockdown as quickly as we would like are very much enhanced."

Cases of the South African Covid-19 variant have the identified in eight local authorities. They include London, Surrey, Kent, Hertfordshire, Walsall and Sefton.