The WHO has said that the mutant strain of the virus may already be present in several countries.
Highlight
- The six passengers arrived in India last night on an Air India flight
- They were among the 266 on the flight that landed in Delhi.
- One of the six took a connecting flight to Chennai, tested positive there
New Delhi:
Six passengers who arrived in India last night on an Air India flight from London tested positive for COVID-19, while those on a British Airways plane that landed this morning in the national capital are being tested, authorities said today. These developments come amid growing fears about a new strain of coronavirus that has been detected in the UK, causing that country’s air traffic to be blocked by several nations, including India, in recent days.
However, India’s ban on flights from the UK will take effect only from Wednesday and will last until December 31. Until then, the government has said, all passengers arriving from the UK will be screened upon arrival at airports.
The six passengers who tested positive upon arrival in India were among the 266 who traveled on the Air India flight that landed in the national capital at 10:40 p.m. on Monday.
Government official Awanish Kumar, who is helping coordinate the tests at the New Delhi airport, said it was “unclear” if any of them had the new strain. “It is not clear … NCDC will confirm this,” Kumar said, referring to the National Center for Disease Control, to which samples of the passengers screened in Delhi were sent.
One of the six took a connecting flight to Chennai and tested positive there, according to an agency report.
“We are testing COVID-19 passengers from flights originating or stopping in the UK. One of those passengers tested positive yesterday,” Tamil Nadu Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan told ANI. However, he also said: “It is incorrect to assume that you are infected with a UK variant of COVID. We will send your samples to NIV (National Institute of Virology), Pune.”
Meanwhile, at least two other flights from Britain have landed in India since the announcement of the flight ban, one in Mumbai and the other in Amritsar, Punjab. Test results of the 240 people who arrived in Amritsar late Monday were due to be presented by Tuesday afternoon, government official Deepak Bhatia told Reuters.
The WHO has said that the mutant strain of the virus, with a 70% higher transmission rate, could already be present in several countries, although it was “unlikely that a couple of mutations” could affect the immune system’s response to a existing vaccine. . First identified in the UK in September, the new strain is rapidly replacing other variations of the virus, according to the WHO.
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