Samples of six people who returned from UK - three tested in Bengaluru, two in Hyderabad and one in NIV, Pune - have found to be infected with the UK variant.
Six people who have returned to India from the UK have tested positive for the UK variant of COVID-19, the Union government said on Tuesday. Three of these samples were tested at NIMHANS, in Bengaluru, two at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) in Hyderabad and one from the National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune. “All these persons have been kept in single room isolation in designated Health Care facilities by respective State Governments. 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 government said in a statement issued on Tuesday morning. The government said that between November 25 and December 23, 33,000 passengers landed in India from various UK airports, and were all tracked. Of these people, 114 have found to be positive for COVID-19. The samples of those positive were sent to 10 INSACOG labs (NIBMG Kolkata, ILS Bhubaneswar, NIV Pune, CCS Pune, CCMB Hyderabad, CDFD Hyderabad, InSTEM Bengaluru, NIMHANS Bengaluru, IGIB Delhi, NCDC Delhi) for genome sequencing. After the UK variant was discovered, the government temporarily suspended all flights from the UK from December 23 to December 31, and made all passengers who returned take the RT-PCR test. The situation is being monitored, the government said, adding that regular advice is being provided to the States for enhanced surveillance, containment, testing and dispatch of samples. Recently, ten regional laboratories were identified by the Centre where states will send five per cent of their COVID-19 positive samples for genome sequencing to detect the new coronavirus variant that has emerged in the United Kingdom. The health ministry has also established the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) for laboratory and epidemiological surveillance and expand whole genome sequencing of the coronavirus in the country, aiding in the understanding of how the virus spreads and evolves. The emergence of the new coronavirus strain in the UK has required India to increase viral genomic surveillance in order to understand the spread of the virus in a rapid and robust manner. "The 10 regional genome sequencing laboratories spread across the country will cater to the nearest states, which will send five per cent of the positive samples to these labs for genome sequencing," stated the Union Health Ministry's guidance document on genomic sequencing released on Monday. The Union government on Monday, while extending the COVID-19 guidelines across the country till January 31, 2021, had said while there has been a continuous decline in active cases in India, there is a need for surveillance, containment and caution due to a surge globally and the emergence of a new variant of the virus in the UK. With inputs from PTI
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