MUMBAI: The search for the UK’s mutant strain of Covid-19 came closer to home with one of the passengers who had traveled from the western country to the city after November 23 testing positive for the virus.
Two other passengers who returned to the UK, one from Pune and the other from Nagpur, have also tested positive since the state government launched a surveillance to check passengers who landed in Maharashtra between November 23 and December 25.
Samples from these three patients will be sent to the National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune for gene sequencing to verify the new highly contagious SARS-CoV-2 mutation. The new variant reportedly emerged in
UK in September and has become the dominant strain accounting for 70% of cases since then.
“We now have three positive patients out of 329 passengers tested by RT-PCR,” said Dr. Pradeep Awate, who heads the epidemiology cell for the state department of public health.
The state obtained 4,629 flyer names and has so far tracked 831.
In another development, the BMC will test 187 passengers who arrived from the UK on December 21, as they would have completed five days in institutional quarantine on Saturday.
“We will start your tests on Saturday. Some of these passengers are from outside Mumbai but from MMR. The BMC will also test them. If their RT-PCR results are negative, they will be allowed to go home, ”said BMC Additional Municipal Commissioner Suresh Kakani. “Similarly, passengers from Europe, the Middle East and South Africa will be screened as soon as they complete five days in quarantine. This will be done in stages. ”
Two other passengers who returned to the UK, one from Pune and the other from Nagpur, have also tested positive since the state government launched a surveillance to check passengers who landed in Maharashtra between November 23 and December 25.
Samples from these three patients will be sent to the National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune for gene sequencing to verify the new highly contagious SARS-CoV-2 mutation. The new variant reportedly emerged in
UK in September and has become the dominant strain accounting for 70% of cases since then.
“We now have three positive patients out of 329 passengers tested by RT-PCR,” said Dr. Pradeep Awate, who heads the epidemiology cell for the state department of public health.
The state obtained 4,629 flyer names and has so far tracked 831.
In another development, the BMC will test 187 passengers who arrived from the UK on December 21, as they would have completed five days in institutional quarantine on Saturday.
“We will start your tests on Saturday. Some of these passengers are from outside Mumbai but from MMR. The BMC will also test them. If their RT-PCR results are negative, they will be allowed to go home, ”said BMC Additional Municipal Commissioner Suresh Kakani. “Similarly, passengers from Europe, the Middle East and South Africa will be screened as soon as they complete five days in quarantine. This will be done in stages. ”
.
