14 new cases of the mutant coronavirus have been discovered in India, bringing the tally to 20. The fresh revelation comes a day after tests revealed that six travellers from the UK were carrying the new COVID variant that is considered many times more transmissible than the earlier versions of the coronavirus. Eight cases were reported from the national capital.
India on Tuesday had reported at least six cases of the new coronavirus strain detected in the UK, prompting the government to direct genome sequencing of samples from all passengers who arrived in India from December 9 to 22 and tested positive for COVID-19 or were symptomatic as it ramped up the surveillance and containment strategy.
More than 40 countries, including India, have banned travel to and from the UK, a move made in view of the rapid spread of the new viral strain, VUI-202012/0, that was detected on September 21. Experts have said that there is no indication that vaccines would be ineffective against the new strain.
Among the UK-returnees found infected by the new strain is a 47-year-old woman who had managed to give the slip to authorities in New Delhi after returning to India on December 21 and had reached Andhra Pradesh by train before being picked up, but the state health commissioner stressed that none of her contacts have been found infected.
A temporary ban on the flights connecting to the United Kingdom could be extended beyond December 31, Union Minister Hardeep Puri indicated as authorities stressed the need to remain vigilant, noting that though the cases have been declining in India, they are on the rise globally and the new strain detected in the UK had spread to several countries.
At the same time, Principal Scientific Advisor K. Vijay Raghavan as well as other experts maintained that so far it has not been found that the new variant increases the severity of the disease.
As it announced the successful completion of the two-day dry-run of vaccination exercise in four states, the government also dismissed apprehensions that the current vaccines may prove ineffective against the new strain.
"There is no evidence that current vaccines will fail to protect against COVID 19 variants reported from the UK or South Africa. Most vaccines do target the Spike protein, in which there are changes in the variants but vaccines stimulate our immune system to produce a wide range of protective antibodies," Raghavan said.
The union ministry had directed that about 33,000 passengers who disembarked at various Indian airports from the UK from November 25 to December 23 midnight be subjected to RT-PCR tests and samples of those found positive be sent for genome sequencing to check for the presence of the variant coronavirus.
-Inputs from agencies
