Kerala confirms six cases of new COVID-19 variant

Ashraf Padanna, Correspondent

Kerala has confirmed six cases of more contagious new coronavirus variant first reported in the UK last month.

After an emergency review meeting on Monday evening, health minister KK Shailaja said that out of six cases, two each were in Kozhikode and Alappuzha and one each in Kottayam and Kannur.

They have been kept in isolation in hospitals and none of them is experiencing any complications.

She asked people to strictly observe the COVID-19 protocol and avoid crowding and hoped to contain the pandemic soon.

"We started screening passengers from the UK and European countries from mid last month and some of them had tested positive for the virus,” she said.

"But we were not sure if they were of the new variant, so we sent the samples to the National Institute of Virology in Pune. We received the final set of results today.”

The officials had earlier in the day warned the government of chances of the new daily cases to reach 9,000 within two weeks as the schools and colleges are open now.

Kerala has been reporting the highest number of cases in India for the past four months and now the southern state accounts for 63,135 of the 243,953 active cases.

More than one-fourth of the new daily cases in India are also now being reported from Kerala.

Across India, a total of 38 samples tested positive for the new UK variant genome so far, according to a federal health ministry release.

All of them have been kept in single room isolation in designated healthcare facilities and their close contacts have also been put under quarantine. 

"Comprehensive contact tracing has been initiated for co-travellers, family contacts and others. Genome sequencing on other specimens is going on,” it said.

"The situation is under careful watch and regular advice is being provided to the states for enhanced surveillance, containment, testing and dispatch of samples.”

Health minister Shailaja asked people to be calm and vigilant and report contacts of the UK returnees, of them 39 have so far tested positive for the virus.

"We have so far sent 29 samples for detailed examination for the new variant and 12 of them found to be not infected by the new variant last week,” she said.

"We are awaiting the results of the rest soon while we continue to send more samples. Two more UK returnees have tested positive during the last 24 hours.”