A total of 38 cases of the more contagious variant of COVID-19, which was first identified in the UK have been confirmed in India, the Union Health Ministry said on Monday. The updated tally includes 29 people, who were found positive for the SARS-CoV-2 till Friday.
‘All these people have been kept in single room isolation in designated healthcare facilities by respective state governments and their close contacts have also been put under quarantine’, the ministry said.
Of the 38, the mutated UK strain was detected in eight samples at National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), New Delhi, 11 in the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB), Delhi, one in the National Institute of Biomedical Genomics (NIBMG), Kalyani (near Kolkata), five in the National Institute of Virology in Pune, three in Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) in Hyderabad and 10 were sequenced at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences Hospital (NIMHANS), Bengaluru. The NCBS, InSTEM in Bengaluru, CDFD in Hyderabad, ILS in Bhubaneswar and NCCS in Pune have so far found no UK mutant virus, the ministry said.
“The situation is under careful watch and regular advice is being provided to the states for enhanced surveillance, containment, testing and dispatch of samples to INSACOG labs,” the ministry stated.
The positive COVID-19 samples are being tested at 10 INSACOG labs (NIBMG Kolkata, ILS Bhubaneswar, NIV Pune, NCCS Pune, CCMB Hyderabad, CDFD Hyderabad, InSTEM Bengaluru, NIMHANS Bengaluru, IGIB Delhi and NCDC Delhi) for genome sequencing.
The presence of the new UK variant has already been reported by Denmark, Netherlands, Australia, Italy, Sweden, France, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Canada, Japan, Lebanon and Singapore.
All the UK returnees are being tracked and subjected by states and Union Territories to RT-PCR tests. The Union Ministry of Health has started comprehensive contact tracing for co-travellers, family contacts and others to curtail the spread of this mutated variant of the killer virus.
