India reports 6 cases of new coronavirus strain as UK returnees test positive

New Delhi: India has recorded six cases of mutant strain of coronavirus, which is believed to be 70 per cent more infectious and was first reported in the United Kingdom, the government said on Tuesday. All six patients recently returned from the UK.

Since November 25, around 33,000 passengers arrived in India from the UK have been screened. All these passengers were tracked and subjected by the states and UTs to the RT-PCR tests. So far only 114 have been found positive. These positive samples were then sent to 10 labs.

It said the mutated UK strain was detected in three samples in NIMHANS, Bengaluru, two in CCMB, Hyderabad and one in NIV, Pune.

All these persons have been kept in single room isolation at designated healthcare facilities by respective state governments and their close contacts have also been put under quarantine, Health Ministry said in a statement.

"Comprehensive contact tracing has been initiated for co-travellers, family contacts and others. Genome sequencing on other specimens is going on. The situation is under careful watch and regular advice is being provided to the states for enhanced surveillance, containment, testing and dispatch of samples to INSACOG labs," the ministry said.

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, so far, the ministry said.

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. This had prompted the Indian authorities to suspend flights to and from the UK till December 31.

Testing of all UK returnee air passengers through RT-PCR test was made mandatory. The samples of all UK returnees found positive in RT-PCR test to be genome sequenced by a consortium of ten government labs.

The strategy also included a meeting of the National Task Force (NTF) on COVID-19 on December 26 to consider and recommend Testing, Treatment, Surveillance and Containment Strategy. Standard Operating Protocol for states and UTs to tackle the mutant variant of SARS-CoV-2 were also issued on December 22.

Over the last few weeks, the UK has faced a rapid increase in Covid-19 cases in South East England, leading to enhanced epidemiological and virological investigations. Analysis of viral genome sequence data identified that a large proportion of cases belonged to a new single phylogenetic cluster.

The new variant is defined by multiple spike protein mutations as well as mutations in the other genomic regions. Preliminary analysis in the UK suggests that this variant is significantly more transmissible than previously circulating variants, with an estimated potential to increase the reproductive number (R) by 0.4 or greater with an estimated increased transmissibility of up to 70 per cent.

India on Tuesday reported 16,432 new cases of the virus, taking its total up to 10.22 million confirmed infections and 148,153 deaths.

The country has the second-highest case load in the world, behind only the United States. Health authorities expect to start a vaccination drive for some 300 million people early next month.

(With PTI and IANS inputs)