Fri. Mar 29th, 2024
COVID-19 Warriors, DoctorsNews18

New Delhi: Amid the scare of a new strain of coronavirus detected in the United Kingdom (UK), Six people returned from Britain have tested positive for a new UK variant genome.

Union Health and Welfare Ministry said that samples of three UK returnees have been tested and found positive for strain in the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro- Sciences (NIMHANS), Bengaluru, two in Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad, and one in National Institute of Virology, Pune. All six people have been kept in single room isolation.

The Ministry also added that from November 25 to December 23, a total of 33,000 passengers had landed at various Indian airports from the UK. Now all of them are being tracked and subjected by states/UTs to RT-PCR tests. So far only 114 have been found positive for COVID-19.

India registered 16,432 fresh cases of coronavirus which pushed the total tally to 1,02,24,303 in the nation. The active cases now stand at 2,68,581. As far as 24,900 patients recovered, and with 252 new deaths in the last 24 hours, the death toll has risen to 1,48,153.

As per data available at Union Health and Welfare Ministry, the total number of tests done during the previous day 9,83,695.

This new strain of the virus which was detected in the United Kingdom is 70 percent more infectious than the other strains. It accounts for one-third of current Coronavirus cases in London. Meanwhile, to keep the situation under control, the UK government announced a fresh lockdown in London and other parts of the country.

As per the reports, the new strain of the virus was found in September. Since then, the UK saw a rise in the spread of disease.

Meanwhile, the Union Ministry of Civil Aviation had temporarily banned all flights coming from the UK to India till 11:59 pm, 31st December. This suspension to start from 11.59 pm, 22nd December.