No contacts of UK returnees in Delhi with new variant of COVID-19 have tested positive so far

New Delhi, No contact of coronavirus patients detected with UK strain has tested positive in a surveillance drive undertaken by the Delhi government, Health Minister Satyendar Jain said on Thursday.

Jain told IANS that all contacts of Covid-19 patients infected with the mutant strain of novel coronavirus had been tested by the government but none was found infected.

"We have tested all contacts of the patients with UK strain infection. Noone has been found infected, apart from those 38 admitted in the LNJP," he said.

IANS had reported that the number of persons suspected to be infected with the new strain had risen to 38 in Delhi after three more persons, including returnees from the UK and a contact, were found corona positive during a surveillance drive on Wednesday.

All 38 patients are kept in isolation at the Lok Nayak Jaiprakash (LNJP) Hospital. Of them, 17 are UK returnees while remaining are their contacts.

"All the patients found infected with the new variant have been isolated in different rooms of a special ward designated for suspected patients or those found infected with the new variant," Dr Suresh Kumar, Medical Director of Delhi government-run hospital had said.

Besides, the AAP government has quarantined around 200 people, who either returned from the UK within a month or are in contact with those travellers found positive, at two facilities in Aerocity and Chattarpur.

The UT government has found over 14,000 passengers who arrived at the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) since November 25. Of them, around 4,000 were found to be residing in Delhi.

The Delhi government has designated 2,000-bed LNJP as the nodal centre for isolation of persons suspected to carry the new variant of Covid-19.

Meanwhile, the Centre said on Thursday that five more cases of mutant coronavirus strain from the UK have been detected in the country, taking the total tally of such cases to 25, based on genome sequencing of positive samples released by the Indian Sars-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) labs.

The samples have so far been sequenced in seven of the 10 designated labs across the country, with seven samples testing positive in NIMHANS, Bengaluru; two in CCMB, Hyderabad; five in NIV, Pune; eight in NCDC, Delhi; two in IGIB, Delhi and one in NIBG, Kalyani (West Bengal).


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