With 6 new cases, 96 in India now have new UK coronavirus strain

The number of persons infected with the UK strain of the coronavirus has increased to 96, the health ministry said on Monday even as flights from Britain resumed after a 16-day suspension to prevent the spread of the mutant strain in India.

According to the ministry, all the 96 persons have been kept in single-room isolation in designated healthcare facilities by the respective state governments and their close contacts have also been put under quarantine.

Till Saturday, the number of such people was 90.

“Comprehensive contact tracing has been initiated for co-travellers, family contacts and others. Genome sequencing on other specimens is also on,” the ministry had said.

Flights from the UK resumed on Friday after the government had suspended all the services on December 23.

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India first detected the “more transmissible” UK strain of SARS-CoV-2 on December 29 when six passengers who had returned from Britain were found to be positive with the new variant genome.

The tracing and testing were initiated after the British government announced that a newly identified strain of the virus, which is up to 70 per cent more transmissible, was found in their population.

Countries such as Denmark, Netherlands, Australia, Italy, Sweden, France, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Canada, Japan, Lebanon and Singapore have also reported the mutant strain of the virus.

India has initiated heightened surveillance measures to detect the UK strain of the coronavirus by making it mandatory for passengers travelling from Britain to undergo an RT-PCR test on arrival at airports here.

(With PTI inputs)