On the 29th of December, India reported the first six cases of the mutant Novel Coronavirus or COVID-19 strain.
The Union Health Ministry today said of the total returnees, the new COVID-19 strain was found in six samples.
The new strain was detected by the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS,) Bengaluru, in the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB,) Hyderabad and in the National Institute of Virology (NIV,)Pune. Of the six, three were from NIMHANS, 2 from CCMB and 1 from NIV.
As of now, the respective state health departments kept these COVID-19 positive patients with the new strain, in single room isolation.
Their close contacts have also been put under quarantine and are observed closely. First found in the United Kingdom (U.K.,) the new strain of COVID-19 infection is deadly and 70 % more dangerous.
The transmission of this new strain is also quicker than the COVID-19 infection.
The Union Health 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 ( Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium) labs.
The positive samples of the six returnees have been sent to 10 INSACOG labs for genome sequencing.
It is important to note that 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 till date.
As a precautionary measure, the Union Government suspended all flights to the U.K., from India and vice versa.
The suspension is in effect from the 23rd of December, till the 31st of December.
However, passengers travelling to India from the U.K., before the 23rd of December, need to undergo strict guidelines which include mandatory COVID-19 test and isolation for two weeks.
The list of all UK arrivals has been shared by the Bureau of Immigration with states and all passengers who arrived between the 25th of November and the 20th of December are being tracked by the IDSP State Surveillance Units and District Surveillance Units.
The Union Government released a statement regarding the same. The statement read, “From (the) 25th November to (the) 23rd December 2020 midnight, about 33,000 passengers disembarked at various Indian airports from the U.K. All these passengers are being tracked and subjected by States/UTs to 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.”
The tests for many passengers are still underway. The respective state governments are even observing these U.K., returnees and their primary contacts closely.
Meanwhile, in India the Novel Coronavirus cases crossed 10.3 million cases with 95.83 % recovery.
Though India is the second COVID-19 worst hit State, it has only 3.60 % of active caseload with 2.77 lakh active cases.
However, the Union Health Ministry advised people of India to be cautious and follow all the guidelines of COVID-19.
Stay tuned for further updates.
