Five passengers from UK flight to India test positive, new coronavirus feared

London : Five passengers on a UK flight to India have tested positive for coronavirus at a time when a new version of COVID-19 infection has been detected and the nation has implied fresh lockdown to prevent spreading of it.

The sample of infected passengers has been sent to the National Centre of Disease Control (NCDC) to check if they have symptoms of new kind of virus in them.

The infected people were onboard a flight with 266 total passengers that landed in India on Monday night.

This becomes crucial as the United Kingdom has announced that the situation there is out of control after the authorities detected a new version of coronavirus.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the new rules at a briefing from 10 Downing Street on Saturday evening, which means a planned five-day Christmas bubble of relaxed rules has been cancelled in favour of a new Tier 4 level to the current three-tier lockdown system to try and control the surge in infections being caused by the new mutation of the deadly virus.

"It seems that the spread is now being driven by the new variant of the virus," Johnson said.