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SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Singapore confirmed its first case of the new coronavirus variant found in the United Kingdom, the city-state said, while 11 others already in quarantine had yielded preliminary positive results for the new strain.
All the cases, which were imported from Europe, had been quarantined for 14 days in specialized facilities or isolated upon arrival, and their close contacts had been quarantined before.
“There is currently no evidence that the B117 strain is circulating in the community,” Singapore’s Health Ministry said late on Wednesday, referring to the new, potentially more infectious UK strain.
Singapore has been conducting viral genomic sequencing for confirmed COVID-19 cases that recently arrived from Europe.
The strain was found among 31 cases from Europe, which arrived in Singapore between November 17 and December 17 and were confirmed to have COVID-19 this month.
The patient with the new variant arrived in Singapore from the UK on December 6, had been quarantined upon arrival and tested positive on December 8. All of his close contacts had been quarantined and had tested negative at the end of the quarantine. period.
The Health Ministry said it had been able to close the case so that there would be no further transmission.
Confirmatory results were pending for the other 11 cases.
Singapore has blocked visitors with a recent travel history to the UK to prevent the new strain from spreading in the city-state which has reported nearly zero new local infections daily.
(Reporting by Aradhana Aravindan in Singapore; Editing by Sam Holmes)
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