- Specimens of three UK returnees have been examined and detected as positive for new Covid strain in NIMHANS, Bengaluru, two in Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology Hyderabad, and one in National Institute of Virology, Pune.
THD NewsDesk, New Delhi: Covid new strain in India: Six passengers, who visited India from the United Kingdom, were detected positive for the modified strain of Coronavirus that was traced in that country earlier this month, according to an announcement by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Following India’s Government, this has forbidden commuter flights from London and other parts of the UK. A lockdown has been implemented in the UK after it declared that the new strain of Covid-19 went “out of control.”
Specimens of three UK returnees have been examined and detected as positive for new Covid strain in NIMHANS, Bengaluru, two in Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology Hyderabad, and one in National Institute of Virology, Pune. All six contaminated individuals have been kept in private room isolation, the Union Health Ministry has revealed.
The situation is under careful watch, and regular advice is being implemented to the States for enhanced surveillance, containment, testing, and dispatch of samples to INSACOG labs, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has assured.
From November 25 to December 23, 2020 midnight, around 33,000 passengers disembarked at various Indian airports from the UK. All these passengers underwent RT-PCR tests. So far, only 114 have been found positive. These positive samples have been sent to 10 INSACOG labs – NIBMG Kolkata, ILS Bhubaneswar, NIV Pune, CCS Pune, CCMB Hyderabad, CDFD Hyderabad, InSTEM Bengaluru, NIMHANS Bengaluru, IGIB Delhi, NCDC Delhi for genome sequencing, according to details provided by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
The new UK Variant has already been reported by Denmark, Netherlands, Australia, Italy, Sweden, France, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Canada, Japan, Lebanon, and Singapore.
During the Covid pandemic, airlines such as Air India, Vistara, British Airways, Virgin Atlantic have operated flights between London and Indian cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, and Amritsar under an air-bubble agreement between the governments of the two countries.
Meanwhile, India has reported 16,432 new COVID-19 cases, 24,900 recoveries, and 252 deaths in the last 24 hours, according to the Union Health Ministry’s details on Tuesday. The total Coronavirus cases in the country are 1,02,24,303, with active Covid cases standing at 2,68,581, total recoveries reached 98,07,569, and the Death toll of 1,48,153.
Source: financialexpress.com