New Delhi: The number of people who have tested positive for the new UK variant of SARS-CoV-2 has climbed to 82 in India, the health ministry said on Friday.
The number of such people stood at 73 till January 6, it added.
“The total number of cases infected with the new strain of the novel coronavirus, first reported in the UK, now stands at 82,” the ministry said.
All the people who have tested positive for the new variant of the virus were kept in single-room isolation at designated healthcare facilities by the respective state governments, the ministry had earlier said.
Their close contacts have also been put under quarantine. A comprehensive contact-tracing exercise has been initiated for their co-travellers, family members and others and genome sequencing on other specimens is going on, the ministry said.
Meanwhile, India has reported 18,139 new Covid-19 cases, 20,539 recoveries, and 234 deaths in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of cases to 1,04,13,417 on Friday, according to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW).
While 1,00,37,398 people have recovered from the novel coronavirus so far, 1,50,570 persons have succumbed to the deadly virus in the country.
