16 UK returnees test positive for virus across Maharashtra

Even as Maharashtra recorded 2,854 new Covid-19 cases, pushing the count to 1,916,236, 16 people across the state, who have returned from the United Kingdom (UK) recently, have tested positive for Covid-19, as of Saturday

Even as Maharashtra recorded 2,854 new Covid-19 cases, pushing the count to 1,916,236, 16 people across the state, who have returned from the United Kingdom (UK) recently, have tested positive for Covid-19, as of Saturday.

A BMC health worker takes a swab sample of a resident in Khar on Saturday. (Satish Bate/HT Photo)

The local administration will be sending their samples to the National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune, to ascertain if they are infected with the new, more infectious strain, which originated from the UK.

Of the 16, four are from Nagpur, three each from Mumbai and Thane, two from Pune, one each from Nanded, Ahmednagar, Raigad and Aurangabad.

The state government has put the administration on alert after the discovery of the mutant strain, directing civic bodies and district collectors to trace and conduct tests of all those who came from the UK between November 15 and December 23.

Meanwhile, Maharashtra’s Covid-19 toll reached 49,189 after 60 casualties were reported. Of them, 34 were in the past 48 hours, five in the past week and the remaining 21 were from before last week, officials said.

A woman, 57, in Aurangabad, central Maharashtra, who had travelled to the UK, had tested positive for Covid-19 on Friday. The local civic body has kept her in isolation.

“This woman arrived in Mumbai on December 15 and reached Aurangabad by taking a connecting flight. Following the directives, we traced her and her RT-PCR report on Friday confirmed that she is positive to Covid-19. However, she is still asymptomatic,” said Dr Nita Padalkar, assistant municipal commissioner and medical officer of health, Aurangabad municipal corporation.

Dr Padalkar said her RT-PCR test conducted in London on December 11 was negative and thus it is difficult to say if she is a carrier or she got infected in transit or after arrival in the country. To know the type of virus, they will send her sample to the NIV (Pune) on Monday,” she said.

On Friday, another UK returnee tested positive in Pune. “This man returned to Pune on December 13 and tested positive on December 17. We are sending his swab samples to NIV to check if the virus is the same or is it the new strain,” said Dr Sanjiv Waware, assistant chief health officer, Pune Municipal Corporation.

Dr Padalkar further said that there are many possibilities in such a case. First, she (Aurangabad woman) may be in the incubation period, which means she came in contact with the virus but it (virus) is yet to start the multiplication process and thus her first report may have come negative. The second possibility is that the virus may have died, but owing to intermittent shedding, a phenomena in medical terms, her first report may have come negative and second have come positive. This is because in the RT-PCR test we test only RNA particles and not the whole virus. Thus even if the virus is dead, the small particles continue to shed and sometimes be detected in the subsequent test reports, she explained.

Despite Maharashtra’s heartening trend of fewer cases of late, state officials still want people and authorities to be extra cautious for two reasons, first, the concern of a surge from next month and second, a new variant of Covid-19 found in the UK and some other countries, which is believed to be 70% more transmissible than the original strain.

“Instead of complaining about the night curfew, people need to understand the seriousness of the situation. If we are getting fewer cases doesn’t mean that it won’t rise again. Also, the new mutant spreads much faster than all the old strains, which means a carrier can infect much more people. Hence, it is advisable to take as much precaution as possible because many people returned from the UK have tested positive, although it is yet to ascertain if they are infected with the old virus or the new mutant,” said a senior official, wishing not to be named.

Mumbai has clocked 536 cases, highest in the state, on Saturday, taking the count to 290,336. Of them, active cases are 8,262. There were 12 deaths reported and the toll in the city has reached 11,068.

Nagpur city contributed the second-highest number of infections in the daily caseload and it has recorded 282 cases. Their tally reached 109,946.

Pune city recorded 226 cases, third-highest number of cases. Its count stood at 189,882.

The state has completed a total of 12,451,919 Covid-19 tests with 50,282 conducted on Saturday.

The number of recovered patients reached 1,807,824 with 1,526 recorded in the past 24 hours. The recovery rate remains at 94.34%.

The state also imposed a seven-hour night curfew from December 22 for the next 15 days till January 5, which is effective in all major cities (municipal corporation areas) across the state between 11 pm and 6am. It has also empowered district collectors to impose night curfew to contain the Covid-19 spread, only after taking approval from the chief secretary.