Nine more patients with the UK strain of SARS-CoV-2 virus, taking the total number of infections of the mutant strain to 38 and prompting the Centre to advise states to step up surveillance and containment measures.
“A total of 38 samples have been found to be positive with the new UK variant genome,” a health ministry statement said on Monday.
On Friday, the total number of Covid-19 patients with the UK strain was 29.
As of date, 11 samples of the mutant strain have been detected at IGIB, New Delhi, NIMHANS-Bengaluru (10), NCDC-New Delhi (8), NIV-Pune (5), CCMB-Hyderabad (3) and NCBG-Kolkata (1).
“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,” a health ministry statement said.
The Centre has set up 10 INSACOG labs for genome sequencing of the UK returnees and their contacts who have tested positive for Covid-19.
Besides the six labs that have detected the mutant strain, NCBS-InSTEM in Bengaluru, CDFD in Hyderabad, ILS in Bhubaneswar and NCCS in Pune have been designated as INSACOG labs.
So far the new UK variant of the coronavirus has already been detected in Denmark, Netherlands, Australia, Italy, Sweden, France, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Canada, Japan, Lebanon and Singapore.
India is set to resume flights to Britain from Wednesday and start receiving air travellers from the European nation two days later.
The government has put in place standard operating procedures for passengers from Britain that include a RT-PCR negative report before boarding the flight and a self-paid RT-PCR test on arrival in India.
Samples of passengers who test positive will be sent for genome sequencing be kept in institutional quarantine facilities.