Guwahati: India has reported the first six cases of mutant Coronavirus/ COVID strain on Tuesday as the returnees from the United Kingdom tested positive.
Samples of three UK returnees were tested and found positive in NIMHANS, Bengaluru. The other two cases were tested at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad; while the last one was tested at the national Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune.
All the six people have been kept in single room isolation in designated healthcare facilities. Their close contacts have also been put under quarantine.
The positive samples of the six returnees have been sent to 10 INSACOG labs for genome sequencing.
It is important to note that the presence of 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 list of all UL arrivals has been shared by Bureau of immigration with states and all passengers who arrived between November 25 and December 20 are being tracked by the ISDP State Surveillance Units and District Surveillance Units.
In the wake of the reports of the new COVID strain, the government has suspended all flights coming from UK with effect from the midnight of December 23, 2020 till December 31, 2020.
The government has also ordered a mandatory testing of all UK returnee air passengers through RT-PCR test.
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