Current affairs

With six positive cases, India now reports the spread of COVID-19 mutant! What's in the govt's statement?

By alagu, 29 December, 2020
Coronavirus, COVID-19, COVID-19 mutant, India, United Kingdom

India has now got added to the list of the global countries that recorded a case of the COVID-19 mutant virus, after six people who have returned to the country from the United Kingdom had on Tuesday confirmed to have contracted the new strain of the Novel Coronavirus. The shocking development has pushed the Central government to put out the preventive mechanism to curb the spread of the new strain, which has been discovered to spread more faster than the COVID-19 pandemic. 

According to the statement issued by the Union Health Ministry on Tuesday, of these six samples, three were tested at NIMHANS, Bangalore, two were tested at the Center for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Hyderabad, and one was tested at the National Institute of Virology in Pune. All these six samples were tested positive for the mutant COVID-19 and these six persons have been kept in single room isolation in designated Health Care facilities by the respective State Governments. 

The Central government said that all the close contacts of these six persons have been put under quarantine and comprehensive contact tracing has been initiated for co-travelers, family contacts, and others, and asserted that Genome sequencing on other specimens is going on. The government has asserted that the situation is under careful watch and regular advice is being provided to the states for enhanced surveillance, containment, testing, and dispatch of samples to INSACOG labs. 

The health ministry has listed out the strategies to contain the spread of the COVID-19 variant and the strategies include - Temporary suspension of all flights coming from the UK with effect from the midnight of 23rd December 2020 till 31st December 2020 - mandatory testing of all UK returnee air passengers through RT-PCR test - Meeting of the National Task Force (NTF) on COVID-19 on 26th December for strategizing containment and surveillance - Standard Operating Protocol for States/UTs tackle the mutant variant of the Coronavirus. 

The health ministry said, "The entire issue was examined at length by NTF on 26th December 2020 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. NTF also recommended that in addition to the existing surveillance strategy, it is critical to conduct enhanced genomic surveillance."

It has further highlighted that "From 25th November to 23rd December 2020 midnight, about 33,000 passengers disembarked at various Indian airports from the UK. All these passengers are being tracked and subjected by States/UTs to RT-PCR tests. So far only 114 have been found positive for COVID-19. These positive samples have been 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."

The Health Ministry added, "It is important to note that 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." It has asserted that the Government of India took cognizance of the reports of the mutant variant of COVID-19 virus reported from the UK and put in place a pro-active and preventive strategy to detect and contain the mutant variant. 

According to reports, the Central government has issued an advisory to the state and UT governments to initiate preventive measures and containment strategies to curb the spread of the new COVID-19 strain and on Monday, the Union Home Ministry has extended the lockdown till January 31, 2021, with the existing relaxations. Several European countries had reported the cases of COVID-19 variant with the UK being the epicenter and most of the nations had suspended air travel to and from the UK to mitigate the new form of the invisible menace. Earlier, the British government said that the mutant strain is spreading 70% faster than the COVID-19 and the situation is getting out of control.

 

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