The Health Ministry on Monday (January 4) said that a total of 38 samples have been found to be positive with the new COVID-19 UK variant genome across India. According to Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MohFW) , there are 10 cases in Bengaluru's NIMHANS, 3 in CCMB (Hyderabad), 5 in NIV (Pune), 11 in IGIB (Delhi), 8 in NCDC (New Delhi) and 1 in NCBG (Kolkata).
The MoHFW also said that no mutant strain has been found by the NCBS, InSTEM, Bengaluru, CDFD Hyderabad, ILS Bhubaneswar, and NCCS Pune have so far.
The positive samples are being tested at 10 INSACOG labs (NIBMG Kolkata, ILS Bhubaneswar, NIV Pune, NCCS Pune, CCMB Hyderabad, CDFD Hyderabad, InSTEM Bengaluru, NIMHANS Bengaluru, IGIB Delhi, NCDC Delhi) for genome sequencing.
"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," said the Union Health Ministry.
They added that the situation is under careful watch and regular advice is being provided to the States for enhanced surveillance, containment, testing & dispatch of samples to INSACOG labs.
Earlier on January 2, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) stated that India became the first country in the world to successfully isolate and culture the new, mutated strain of the novel coronavirus.
“UK-variant of the virus, with all signature changes, is now successfully isolated and cultured at the National Institute of Virology (NIV) from the clinical specimens collected from UK-returnees,” the apex medical body shared on microblogging site Twitter.
Apart from India, the new strain has been reported in several countries including Denmark, Netherlands, Australia, Italy, Sweden, France, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Canada, Japan, Lebanon and Singapore.
