New Delhi, Jan 6: The number of people who have tested positive for the new UK variant of SARS-CoV-2 in the country has climbed to 73, the Union health ministry said on Wednesday.
These cases include the 58 which were announced by the ministry till Tuesday. “The total number of cases infected with the new strain of the novel coronavirus first reported in the UK now stands at 73,” the ministry said. All these people have been kept in single room isolation in designated healthcare facilities by respective state governments, the ministry had said on Tuesday.
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.
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.
Of the 73 cases, the mutated UK strain was detected in eight samples at National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), New Delhi, in 20 at the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB), Delhi, in one at National Institute of Biomedical Genomics (NIBMG), Kalyani (near Kolkata), in 30 at the National Institute of Virology in Pune, in three at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) in Hyderabad and 11 were sequenced at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences Hospital (NIMHANS) Bengaluru.
The presence of the new UK variant has already been reported by several countries including Denmark, the Netherlands, Australia, Italy, Sweden, France, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Canada, Japan, Lebanon and Singapore. (PTI)
