Four more cases of the mutant Covid UK strain have been detected in the country, the health ministry said on Friday, taking the total tally of such cases to 29 so far. They are kept in physical isolation in health facilities. Out of these 4 cases, three were found in Bangalore and one in Hyderabad.
Out of these 29 cases, eight have been registered at National Centre for Disease Control in Delhi, two at CSIR Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology in Delhi, 10 at National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences in Bangalore.
On Tuesday, a total of six UK returnees were found to be positive with the new variant genome. These were the first cases to be reported by the country that has the second-highest number of cases after the United States.
The British Government had recently announced that the newly identified strain of the virus found in their population is up to 70 per cent more transmissible.
The new UK variant which is said to be more contagious has already been reported by Denmark, Netherlands, Australia, Italy, Sweden, France, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Canada, Japan, Lebanon and Singapore.
About 33,000 passengers disembarked at various Indian airports from the UK in between November 25 to December 23 midnight, are being tracked and subjected by states and UTs to RT-PCR tests.
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The new strain which was detected in September in Britain was found in India earlier this week in travellers who returned from the European country.
The centre in December decided to temporarily ban flights from the UK to curb the spread of the new strain. It has also started a genome sequencing project involving 10 laboratories across the country.