Hyderabad: Even though the new UK variant of COVID-19 has entered India, large scale cases have not yet been reported said Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology (CCMB) Director Rakesh Mishra. He further said that we can not, however, deny the spread of a new variant of COVID. He said that in some cases the reports come as false positive as earlier traces of COVID are present in a patients body.
He also said that even on the global level, more cases of the new variant have not been reported.
"Even though the new positive cases rate has decreased in the country, India still is reporting the highest positive cases worldwide, he added.
Commenting on COVID vaccines, Rakesh Mishra said that the vaccination drive is going to start soon, however, the vaccines produced in India are more effective. He said that Pfizer has also announced that it is working on new COVID variant.
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A more transmissible strain of COVID-19 is reported to have caused a spike in infections in the United Kingdom. As per the experts, this strain is more transmissible than other SARS-CoV-2 variants.
On December 29, six UK returnees were found positive for the new coronavirus variant. These were the first cases to be reported in India, which has the second-highest number of coronavirus cases after the United States.
The tracing and testing were initiated after the British government announced that a newly identified strain of the virus was found in the UK population, which is up to 70 per cent more transmissible.
Notably, the UK strain has already been reported by Denmark, Netherlands, Australia, Italy, Sweden, France, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Canada, Japan, Lebanon and Singapore.
The Ministry said that it is monitoring the situation closely and giving regular advice to the states for enhanced surveillance, containment, testing and dispatch of samples to labs.
