New strain of coronavirus found in UK not detected in India so far: Centre

The new strain of the virus has sparked fresh concern worldwide as cases of the new coronavirus mutation have been also found in countries like Denmark, Italy, Gibraltar, the Netherlands and Australia besides the UK where it is rapidly spreading.

"The new strain or mutation of (the) coronavirus in the United Kingdom has not been seen in India, so far," Dr VK Paul, a member of government think-tank NITI Aayog, said.

"(And) as of now, it has no impact on the potential of vaccines being developed in our country and (which) are available in other countries," he added.

India has joined 25 other countries in temporarily suspending air travel to and from the United Kingdom starting Tuesday.

In a statement released on Twitter, the Ministry of Aviation on Monday said, "As a measure of abundant precaution, passengers arriving from UK in all transit flights (flights that have taken off or flights which are reaching India before 22nd Dec at 23.59 hrs) should be subject to mandatory RT-PCR test on arrival at the airports concerned."

The government also announced SOPs for all incoming passengers until then.

The SOPs include mandatory RT-PCR tests for all arrivals and isolation for those testing positive, as well as institutional quarantine for contacts of passengers who test positive.

According to the government, "contacts" will include all those within three rows of the infected passenger.

Eight passengers who arrived last night on two separate flights from London have tested positive for the virus.

Those on a British Airways flight that landed in Delhi on Tuesday were tested too but were found negative.

Meanwhile, in the last 7 weeks, the average of daily new cases of Covid-19 have seen a continuous decline in India.

The average daily deaths have also declined in the past 7 weeks, the Union Health Ministry informed.