New Delhi: Anticipating a possible 'sudden spike' of Covid-19 cases in India following the detection of Phylogenetic cluster of SARS-CoV-2 in the United Kingdom, the central government has decided to suspend all flights originating from UK into India from 12 a.m. Tuesday.
The decision was taken in an emergency meeting chaired by Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan in New Delhi on Monday.
In a letter addressed to civil aviation secretary Pradeep Singh Kharola, Health Secretary Bhushan said that Covid19 is spreading rapidly due to Phylogenetic cluster of SARS-CoV-2 in UK.
Bhushan chaired a meeting of the joint monitoring group (JMG) headed by director general of health service (DGHS) and the vaccine task force headed by the principal scientific advisor and member (health), Niti Aayog.
It has been reported that this variant has an unusually large number of genetic changes, particularly in the spike protein.
"This development calls for an enhanced epidemiological surveillance, enhanced containment and other measures to effectively tackle the challenge," Bhushan said.
He highlighted that India has been seeing a sustained decline in the number of fresh Covid19 cases for over two and a half months now accompanied by a decline in the number of deaths.
"In this scenario, any interjection of a SARS-CoV-2 variant virus through passengers with air travel history could pose critical risks for pandemic management in India," Bhushan said.
The meeting also decided that passengers arriving from UK in all international flights should be subjected to mandatory RT PCR tests on arrival at the airports concerned.
"Those who are found positive on arrival must be sent for institutional quarantine/isolation set up by the state government. Those who are found negative in RT-PCR tests should be advised to isolate themselves at home for seven days, to be medically monitored by the States and UTs concerned," the letter said.
Bhushan said that relevant information in this regard may be prominently displayed in arrival area and waiting area of the airports.
"Adequate area cements for passengers waiting for their RT PCR tests results may also be made at the airports," Bhushan said.
READ: UK holds crisis talks as virus sweeps through
Talking to ETV Bharat, Dr Tamorish Kole, president of Asian Society for Emergency Medicine said that three important features of this virus includes it is rapidly replacing other versions of the virus, mutations of this virus has displayed an exceptionally large changes in the genome and die to this change the transmission of this virus has increased to 70 percent compared to the earlier variant (50 percent).
However, there is no evidence yet to suggest that the variant causes more deadly infection and at least for now the developed vaccines will certainly work against it, said Dr Kole.
"If the virus changes to the extent that it dodges the full effect of the vaccine, then we will land in a situation called "vaccine escape" which is a global health concern," said Dr Kole.
Interestingly, Italy's Health Ministry has also said that it has detected a patient infected with the new strain of Covid19 which the UK said is 'out of control.'
The patient and his partner returned from the UK in the last few days with a flight that landed at Rome's Fiumicino airport are presently in isolation, the Italian government said.
Following the detection of Coronavirus mutation in UK, the British government has imposed a stringent stay-at-home lockdown from Sunday. Many other countries including Netherlands has also imposed a ban on UK flights.
READ: India suspends flights from UK, RT-PCR mandatory for transit passengers
