Noida: Health dept conducts tests of 260 travellers from UK, 2 found positive for Covid-19

NOIDA: The Gautam Budh Nagar health department has conducted RT-PCR testing of 260 returnees from the United Kingdom. Officials said that test results of around

NOIDA: The Gautam Budh Nagar health department has conducted RT-PCR testing of 260 returnees from the United Kingdom. Officials said that test results of around 140 travellers have been received, and two of them have tested positive for Covid-19.

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In the wake of the rise of a new variant of the Sars-CoV-2 virus in the UK, the district administration has prepared a list of 425 passengers who have arrived from that country in the past 30 days. While all of them have been asked to serve the mandatory 28-day home quarantine, the district health department has started RT-PCR testing of 260 of them who have come to India after December 8, the officials said.

GB Nagar district magistrate Suhas LY said that the Covid-19 control room is keeping a close eye on all the 425 travellers. “So far, we have got results of RT-PCR tests of around 140 travellers, of which two have been tested positive. Both the infected patients have been admitted to an isolation ward at the Government Institute of Medical Sciences (GIMS) in Greater Noida,” he said.

The new variant, referred to as Sars-CoV-2 VUI 202012/01 (Variant Under Investigation, year 2020, month 12, variant 01), was detected in the UK earlier this month and reported to be highly transmissible.

The DM said that the presence of new variant of the virus among the positive patients can only be ascertained through genomic sequencing. “Their samples have been sent to ICMR laboratory in New Delhi. But, since they were negative in their RT-PCR tests two weeks ago in the UK, it is expected that they are having only common Covid-19 infection. If the new variant of Sars-CoV-2 is found in their samples, the patients will continue to remain in the isolation unit for another 14 days, when they will be tested again,” he said.

GB Nagar chief medical officer Dr Deepak Ohri said that all the 185 international travellers from the UK, who arrived in India between November 25 and December 8, will be contacted by district surveillance officials. “As per the standard operating procedure of the state government, those who had arrived from the UK between November 23 and December 8 had to be in mandatory 28-day home quarantine. If anyone among them develops symptoms, we’ll take their samples for RT-PCR,” he said.