PremiumA total of 58 people have tested positive for the new UK variant of SARS-CoV-2 in India so far, the Union Health Ministry said today. The new coronavirus variant found in the UK is said to 70 per cent more infectious than the first one.
Till yesterday, a total of 38 people were found infected with the new strain of the virus till date in the country. Among them, 11 people have tested positive with the new strain at CSIR's Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB), and eight samples tested at NCDC, both in Delhi.
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The new strain of 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.
In view of the ‘highly infectious’ UK Covid-19 strain, the government temporary suspended all flights coming from the UK with effect from the midnight of 23 December till 5 January and mandatory testing of all UK-returned air passengers through RT-PCR test.
Meanwhile, India's Covid-19 tally reached 1,03,40,469, with 16,504 cases registered in the last 24 hour, according to the Union Health Ministry data.
