13 More In India Infected With UK Coronavirus Strain,Tally Stands at 71
New Delhi: Thirteen more people tested positive for the new UK coronavirus strain on Wednesday taking the total number of cases infected with the new virus variant to 71. They are kept in physical isolation in health facilities.
Their close contacts have also been put under quarantine. Comprehensive contact tracing has been initiated for co-travellers, family contacts and others. Genome sequencing on other specimens is going on, the ministry said.
On December 29, 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 tracing and testing was initiated after British government announced that a newly identified strain of the virus was found in their population which is up to 70 per cent more transmissible.
Notably, the new UK variant has already been reported by Denmark, Netherlands, Australia, Italy, Sweden, France, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Canada, Japan, Lebanon and Singapore.
From November 25 to December 23 midnight, about 33,000 passengers disembarked at various Indian airports from UK. All these passengers are being tracked and subjected by States and UTs to RT-PCR tests.
(With IANS Inputs)
Ms Kalinga AI