India has recorded 14 more cases with the new UK coronavirus mutant strain, taking the total number of such cases to 20, the Union Health Ministry said on Wednesday. The British government said this new strain of coronavirus is up to 70 per cent more transmissible and is spreading across the globe prompting countries to impose restrictions.
On Tuesday, a total of six UK returnees were found to be positive with the new variant genome, the central government had announced, adding that all these persons have been kept in single room isolation in designated health care facilities. These were the first cases to be reported by the country that has the second-highest number of cases after the US.
Of the 20 cases, eight have been registered at National Centre for Disease Control in Delhi, 7 at National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences in Bangalore, two at Cellular and Molecular Biology in Hyderabad. One each has been logged at National Institute of Biomedical Genomics near Kolkata, National Institute of Virology in Pune and CSIR Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology in Delhi.
A two-year-old girl in Meerut has also tested positive for the new strain, said Meerut's Chief Medical Officer Akhilesh Mohan. The parents of the two-year-old though Covid positive, however, be infected with the mutant. The child is in an isolation ward with her parents.
A total of 107 samples have undergone genome sequencing till now.
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.
Fearing the strain, India last week had temporarily suspended all incoming flights from the UK. About 33,000 passengers who have arrived from the UK, in between November 25 to December 23 midnight, are being tracked and subjected by states and UTs to RT-PCR tests.
The new covid strain has sparked concerns when India is at the stage of vaccine rollout. The Health Ministry on Tuesday, averting fears said the existing coronavirus vaccines will work against mutated strains. "There is no evidence current vaccines will fail to protect against COVID-19 variants from the UK or South Africa," Professor K VijayRaghavan, the government's Principal Scientific Adviser, said.
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Bharat Biotech, Serum Institute of India and Pfizer - earlier this month have applied to the drug controller for emergency use authorization.
India has reported over 1.02 coronavirus cases so far, and 1.48 lakh deaths.