Six people who had recently returned from the UK to India have tested positive with the new coronavirus strain that reportedly spreads at a much faster pace.
According to a government statement, 3 samples in NIMHANS of Bengaluru, 2 in CCMB, Hyderabad and 1 in NIV, Pune have been detected out of all the samples tested.
The health ministry has “put in place a pro-active and preventive strategy to detect and contain the mutant variant”. "The samples of all UK returnees found positive in RT-PCR test to be genome sequenced by a consortium of 10 government labs," the ministry note said.
As per reports, all 6 infected persons have been kept in single-room isolation in designated health care facilities by respective state governments. Their families have also been put under quarantine. Comprehensive contact tracing of co-travellers, family and others are on. Flights coming from the UK have been temporarily suspended till December 31, 2020.
Also, a meeting of the National Task Force (NTF) on COVID-19 was held on December 26 to consider and recommend testing, treatment, surveillance and containment strategy.
Besides, a standard operating protocol for states and UTs to tackle the mutant variant of SARS-CoV-2 was issued on December 22.
The entire issue was examined at length by the NTF on December 26 and the NTF concluded that there is no need to change either the existing National Treatment Protocol or existing testing protocols in view of the mutant variant.
The NTF also recommended that in addition to the existing surveillance strategy, it is critical to conduct enhanced genomic surveillance, the ministry said.
Over the last few weeks, the United Kingdom has faced a rapid increase in COVID-19 cases in South East England, leading to enhanced epidemiological and virological investigations, the ministry had said.
Analysis of viral genome sequence data identified that a large proportion of cases belonged to a new single phylogenetic cluster. The new variant is defined by multiple spike protein mutations present as well as mutations in the other genomic regions.
While it is known and expected that viruses constantly change through mutations leading to the emergence of new variants, preliminary analysis (based on epidemiological and mathematical model) in the UK suggests that this variant is significantly more transmissible than previously circulating variants, with an estimated potential to increase the reproductive number (R) by 0.4 or greater with estimated increased transmissibility of up to 70 per cent.
"However, there is no experimental evidence or indication at this point of increased infection severity associated with the aforementioned new variant," the ministry has said.
The presence of the new UK Variant has already been reported by Denmark, Netherlands, Australia, Italy, Sweden, France, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Canada, Japan, Lebanon and Singapore, so far.
