Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun has ordered health authorities to closely check the country's quarantine system and create supplementary measures to prevent the spread of a new COVID-19 variant.

The prime minister issued the order on Tuesday during a government meeting in Seoul, following the detection of the country's first cases of the new strain the previous day.

Chung said that the variant, which is much more transmissible than existing strains, would be a great burden for the country's quarantine system if it spreads into local communities. 

The prime minister also said that the government will extend the operation of temporary COVID-19 testing clinics in the greater Seoul area by two weeks.

The makeshift testing centers were originally set to operate until Sunday.   

Chung said that the facilities have conducted over 500-thousand tests and detected more than 14-hundred cases over the past two weeks, preemptively detecting asymptomatic virus spreaders.