The Spanish government on Tuesday extended its restrictions on arrivals from the UK, Brazil and South Africa until March 16 to try to reduce the spread of new COVID-19 strains.

The ban was first imposed on the UK at the end of December following the discovery of a new more contagious virus strain there last year.

A similar order against Brazil and South Africa was then imposed in early February.

Only legal residents or nationals of Spain and the neighbouring microstate of Andorra are currently allowed entry from those three countries.

However, passengers in transit who cannot leave the airport nor remain there longer than 24 hours are exempted.

Just last week, Spain also imposed a mandatory 10-day quarantine period on persons arriving from South Africa or Brazil, or seven days for persons able to prove they returned a negative COVID-19 test.

According to figures from the Ministry of Health, about 900 cases of the UK variant have been confirmed compared to six cases of the South African variant and one of the Brazilian variant.

A number of European countries have also imposed restrictions on arrivals from the three countries amid fears the new COVID-19 variants may spread more easily or contain mutations that allow the virus to evade the effects of vaccines.

Spain has been hard-hit by the pandemic, reporting more than 3.1 million confirmed cases and more than 67,000 deaths according to data from the Johns Hopkins University.

(With input from agencies)