People testing positive for the new virus strain increase in India

People testing positive: Number of people testing positive for the new coronavirus strain are increasing in India as days go by. 13 people were detected to be positive of the new strain amid the already increasing cases of the novel coronavirus. 

The number of UK returnees testing positive for the mutant virus has now reached 71, announced centre. These results were released after the Indian SarsCoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) labs confirmed the genome sequencing in the samples taken by these people on arrival. INSACOG is dedicated for monitoring the situation of any kind of mutation in the virus. 

A briefing was given to the media on tuesday by Dr Renu Swarup, who said, “As of now, there have been 71 positive cases detected of the new UK variant from different designated labs across the country.” Swarup is the secretary of the Department of Biotechnology. 

The Centre has asked all the states to speed up the process of contact tracing of positive cases while also testing those showing heavy symptoms or the symptoms which are vividly different from Sars CoV-2. 

Contract tracing will help authorities in taking note of the areas where these people have been and also help and warn people with whom they have come in contact in the past. Extra precautions are being taken as this mutant virus is known to be 70 percent more infectious than the original one. 

Along with INSACOG NIMHANS, Bengaluru, CCMB, Hyderabad, NIV, Pune, IGIB, Delhi, NCDC, New Delhi, and NCBG, Kolkata are the labs that have monitored genome sequencing and returned the positive samples of the mutant virus. 

While other labs that have been monitoring the situation such as NCBS, InSTEM, Bengaluru, CDFD Hyderabad, ILS Bhubaneswar, and NCCS Pune have not found traces of genome sequencing in their labs.