NEW DELHI, Jan 1: A total of 29 people have tested positive for the new UK variant of SARS-CoV-2 in India so far, the Union Health Ministry said today.
These include the 25 cases which were announced till Thursday.
“All the 29 persons are in physical isolation in health facilities,” an official said.
Of the 29, the mutated UK strain was detected in the samples of eight persons at the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) in New Delhi, two 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.
Comprehensive contact tracing has been initiated for co-travellers, family contacts and others, the Ministry said.
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, so far.
The Government of India took cognizance of the reports of virus reported from the UK and put in place a proactive and preventive strategy to detect and contain the mutant variant, the ministry said.
This strategy includes temporary suspension of all flights coming from the UK with effect from the midnight of December 23 till January 7 and mandatory testing of all UK-returned air passengers through RT-PCR test.
The samples of all UK returnees found positive in RT-PCR test will be genome sequenced by a consortium of 10 government labs – INSACOG.
Further, all the international passengers who have arrived in India between December 9 to 22, if symptomatic and tested positive for COVID-19, will be subjected to genome sequencing as part of the Centre’s strategy to detect the mutated UK variant in them.
Others will be followed up by the respective state and district surveillance officers and will be tested as per ICMR guidelines (even if asymptomatic) between the fifth and the tenth day, according to the Union Health Ministry’s guidance document on genomic sequencing.
Further, epidemiological surveillance of the passengers, who have arrived in India since November 23 will be conducted in the community through active follow up.
The standard operating protocol for states and UTs to tackle the mutant variant of SARS-CoV-2 was issued on December 22, it added.
Meanwhile the, daily new Coronavirus infections in India remained below 30,000 for the 19th consecutive day taking the COVID-19 caseload to 1,02,86,709, while the number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 98.83 lakh, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated today.
A total of 20,035 new infections were reported in a day, while the death toll increased to 1,48,994 with 256 new fatalities, the data updated at 8 am today showed
The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 98,83,461 pushing the national recovery rate to 96.08 per cent, while the COVID-19 case fatality rate stands at 1.45 per cent.
The COVID-19 active caseload remained below 3 lakh for the 11th consecutive day.
There are 2,54,254 active cases of Coronavirus infection in the country which comprises 2.47 per cent of the total caseload, the data stated.
India’s COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 30 lakh on August 23, 40 lakh on September 5 and 50 lakh on September 16.It went past 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11, crossed 80 lakh on October 29, 90 lakh on November 20 and surpassed the one-crore mark on December 19.
According to the ICMR, 17,31,11,694 samples have been tested up to December 31 with 10,62,420 samples being tested on Thursday. (PTI)
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