The Union Health Ministry said on Monday that 38 people have tested positive for the new UK variant of SARS-CoV-2 in India so far. All the 38 people have been kept in single room isolation in designated healthcare facilities by respective state governments and their close contacts have also been put under quarantine, the ministry said. 

The Ministry details the infection, Of the 38, the mutant UK strain was detected in eight samples at National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), New Delhi, 11 in the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB), Delhi, one in the National Institute of Biomedical Genomics (NIBMG), Kalyani (near Kolkata), five in the National Institute of Virology in Pune, three in Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) in Hyderabad and 10 were sequenced at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences Hospital (NIMHANS), Bengaluru. The NCBS, InSTEM in Bengaluru, CDFD in Hyderabad, ILS in Bhubaneswar and NCCS in Pune found no UK mutant virus so far. 

“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 ministry informed. The government of India took cognizance of the reports of virus reported from the UK and put in place a proactive and preventive strategy to detect and contain the mutant variant,the Health Ministry said. 

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