India Reports 7 More Fresh Cases Of New Strain Of Coronavirus, Total 109 Cases have Been Detected So Far

 The Union Ministry Of Health and Family Welfare announced on Thursday that a total of 109 persons have been detected positive with the new strain of Covid-19.

The total number of persons found infected with the mutant UK strain of #COVID19 is 109: Ministry of Health and Family Welfare

— ANI (@ANI) January 14, 2021

Till January 13, the number of people affected by this strain of coronavirus was 102.

All these people were kept in single room isolation in designated healthcare facilities by respective state governments. Their close contacts have also been put in quarantine and comprehensive contact tracing has been initiated for co-travellers, family contacts and others.

Genome sequencing on other specimen is going on, the ministry said, adding the situation is under careful watch and regular advice is being provided to the states for enhanced surveillance, containment, testing and dispatch of sample to INSACOG labs, the ministry said.

The presence of new UK  variant of Covid-19 has already been reported by Denmark, Netherlands, Australia, Italy, Sweden, France, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Canada, Japan, Lebanon and Singapore.

After the new strain of coronavirus was detected in UK, the Central government had imposed ban on flights coming to India from UK and vice-versa from December 22,2020.

However, the flight operations between India and UK resumed from January 8. Passengers will have to undergo an RT-PCR test both in the UK before boarding their flight and after arriving in India. Moreover, the Delhi government has imposed additional restrictions on people coming from the UK to Delhi, every passenger irrespective of their test result will have to undergo seven day institutional quarantine in Delhi.

Meanwhile, India's Covid-19 tally increased to 1,05,12,831 with 16,946 new cases in past 24 hours, while the recoveries surged to 1,01,46,763 pushing the national recovery rate to 96.52 per cent.

Moreover, the death toll increased to 1,51,727 with 198 new fatalities in past 24 hours. The fatality rate of the country stands at 1.44 per cent.

The active caseload of the country stands at 2,13,603. The share of the active cases in the total cases has further shrunk to 2.03 per cent.

India to begin its vaccination drive from January 16, India's first consignment of Covid vaccine "Covishield" was transported from Pune to various locations on Tuesday.

On January 3, the Drug Controller General Of India (DCGI) have a go-ahead to two vaccines, Covishield developed by Serum Institute Of India (SII) and Covaxin developed by Bharat Biotech.

It will be administered in two doses, with a gap of 28 days between each dose. The effectiveness will begin 14 days after the second dose. Citizens are expected to stick to COvid-19 appropriate behaviour during and after the vaccination process.