Four Indians detected with South African strain of coronavirus

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Four Indians detected with South African strain of coronavirus (Photo by Brian McGowan on Unsplash)
Four Indians detected with South African strain of coronavirus (Photo by Brian McGowan on Unsplash)

New Delhi : India continues to receive new strains of coronavirus from different part of the world. In a recent update, four Indians have been tested positive for COVID-19 infection with South African strain.

The new strain has been found in the four people who returned from Africa - one from Angola, one from Tanzania and two from South Africa in January.

ICMR Director General Balram Bhargava confirmed that all the four people and the ones who were in their contact have been quarantined.

He further said," ICMR-NIV is attempting to isolate and culture the South African variant of SARS-CoV-2."

Talking about the UK strain, he informed that till date India has 187 confirmed cases of the strain and all of them have been tested and quarantined. "Neutralisation potential with UK variant of the virus is there with the vaccine that we have," he added.

A case of Brazil variant of SAS-CoV-2 detected in the first week of Feb. Virus strain successfully isolated and cultured at ICMR-NIV-Pune. Experiments to assess vaccine effectiveness are underway. South African and Brazilian variants are different from the UK variant," said DG ICMR.

"We have done disembarkations, mandatory RT-PCR tests for travellers coming from UK. Those who tested positive, their genome sequencing being done. This is a good strategy. I hope- we might follow this similar strategy for flights from South Africa & Brazil:," said Secy, Health Ministry.