UK returnee to Andhra Pradesh detected with new variant of coronavirus

Making fears come true, a 47-year-old woman, who earlier returned to Andhra Pradesh from the UK, has been found to have contracted the new mutated variant of coronavirus. The state government stated that currently there is no spread of the new variant of coronavirus in Andhra Pradesh.

Last week, the woman, who arrived from the UK, escaped from the Delhi airport to reach Rajahmundry, along with her 22-year-old son, via the AP Express. With the woman’s samples, collected in Delhi, returning positive, the district authorities of East Godavari were put on alert. Upon her arrival in Rajahmundry, the woman was eventually shifted to the isolation ward at a government hospital in Rajahmundry. Her samples were then sent to the National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune to test them for the new UK variant of coronavirus.

As per the Andhra Pradesh Commissioner of Health and Family Welfare Department, state Health Commissioner Katamaneni Bhaskar, the woman’s son, who travelled with her, tested negative for the virus. Mr Bhaskar said that the officials are constantly monitoring the situation and there’s no need to panic. He further urged the public to not believe in rumours.

So far, 20 individuals, who returned to India from the UK, have tested positive for the new mutated variant of coronavirus. On Tuesday, the Ministry of Health informed that from 25 November to 23 December 2020 midnight, about 33,000 passengers disembarked at various Indian airports from the UK. “All these passengers are being tracked and subjected by States/UTs to RT-PCR tests. So far only 114 have been found positive. These positive samples have been sent to 10 INSACOG labs (NIBMG Kolkata, ILS Bhubaneswar, NIV Pune, CCS Pune, CCMB Hyderabad, CDFD Hyderabad, InSTEM Bengaluru, NIMHANS Bengaluru, IGIB Delhi, NCDC Delhi) for genome sequencing,” the Minsitry said.