The Texas state health department says it is seeing “rapid growth” in new cases of a highly contagious coronavirus variant that was first detected in the United Kingdom. The Texas Department of State Health Services recorded 45 cases of the variant, known as B.1.1.7, as of Friday, a spokesperson wrote in an email to The Dallas Morning News. Of those, nine are from a public health region that includes North Texas. Researchers at Houston Methodist Hospital last week also reported Texas’ first two cases of the South African variant, which is both highly contagious and more likely than other strains to dodge the human immune system.