Six including one from Telangana, test positive for UK strain

One traveller from the UK who had returned to Telangana after December 9 tested positive for the new strain of coronavirus, the Union Health Ministry and local health authorities said on Tuesday.

The UK returnee in the State was one among six travellers from across the country who tested positive for the new variant. Of the six, three were from Karnataka while one each were from Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra.

The person in Telangana has been admitted to a designated government healthcare facility and is receiving treatment in an isolation room. All the close contacts of the individual have been quarantined and their health status is being monitored round the clock.

Senior public health officials in Hyderabad said all-out efforts were under way to break the transmission chains of the new variant in the State. The situation was under control as district surveillance teams had ramped up testing and tracing of close contacts of all individuals who returned from the UK after December 9.

Since December 9, close to 1,216 travellers from the UK have returned to Telangana of which the surveillance teams of the State Health Department managed to track down 996 individuals and conducted RT-PCR tests.

“Of the 996 UK returnees who were tested, 966 tested Covid negative and 21 positive. The results of nine more are awaited. Samples of all the 21 Covid positive patients were sent to CCMB for genome sequencing. However, only one person had the new strain,” Director of Public Health (DPH) Dr G Srinivasa Rao said. TToday