Thiruvananthapuram/New Delhi: The state health department has said that eight people, who returned to Kerala from the UK where a new strain of the Coronavirus was recently discovered, are not known to have had contacts with others. However, enquiries will be continued for more accurate information.
Instructions for strict vigil would be issued if the genetically-modified virus was detected in the fluid samples sent to the National Institute of Virology in Pune. Also, more restrictions would be placed around the houses and the places these eight people had travelled to.
However, the Union Health Ministry is yet to confirm if the new Coronavirus variant has been detected in India. Earlier, it was said that 72 hours were needed for the genetic sequencing.
But the test results of even those, who reached India on December 21 and had tested positive for COVID-19, are yet to be released.
Meanwhile, the states have intensified measures to identify those who had arrived from the UK earlier and carry out the COVID-19 tests on them.
'Super-spreader strain detected, but died on its own'
The Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB) director, Anurag Agrawal, has revealed that a 'super-spreader' COVID strain was identified in India earlier itself.
"Several virus variants were detected in India. Of this, one was a super-spreading strain. This virus variant, that was detected in March, died on its own by June," he explained.
This variant was detected in samples from Delhi, Hyderabad, and Karnataka.
Meanwhile, the state health department has said that the threat of a 30 per cent increase in the COVID cases after the local body elections in Kerala has abated.
