COVID-19: UP reports 10 cases of new, more infectious strain, all districts put on high alert

All districts in Uttar Pradesh have been put on high alert, all DMs have been instructed to strictly follow the coronavirus protocols.

Image used for representational purpose

Lucknow: As more cases of the new, mutated coronavirus is being reported in India it has once again created anxiety among state governments. In a recent case, a two-year-old girl from Uttar Pradesh's Meerut was found infected with the new COVID-19 strain which was first discovered in the UK.

All districts in Uttar Pradesh and the health departments have been put on high alert. All DMs have been instructed to strictly follow the coronavirus protocols. All the districts are being monitored through the Director General of Health, Dr. DS Negi of the state Covid Control Room to avoid any kind of negligence.

So far, a total of 1,655 people have returned from the UK to Uttar Pradesh and 1,090 have been identified. While the mobile phones of 565 people are switched off and efforts are on to find them based on their listed address.

Principal Secretary of the Department of Medicine and Health, Alok Kumar said that samples of all these have been sent to the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology for genomic sequencing in New Delhi.

So far, as many as 10 people have been found infected with the new COVID-19 strain. There are cases from Meerut, Noida, Ghaziabad and Bareilly, apart from these four other districts in the state too have been put on high alert. 

While a total of 20 UK returnees to India have tested positive for the new strain of which 6 people had tested positive for the new COVID-19 strain on Monday.

The Indian government is on high alert and the Centre has imposed a ban on all flights to the UK till December 31, further, it ordered that all UK returnees who had arrived in India in the recent days must be tested.