South African and Brazilian Strains of Coronavirus Detected: Health Ministry
Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Feb 16: Even as India felt relaxed at 17 states and union territories not reporting any new deaths and six of them not a single new Corona positive case in the last 24 hours on Tuesday, the surging cases in Kerala and Maharashtra was causing concern to the authorities.
Only these two states, Kerala and Maharashtra, accounted for more than 72 per cent of the current active cases in the country, the union health ministry said on Tuesday.
Additionally also causing concern was the detection of the South African and Brazilian strains of Covid-19 besides the UK Variant that have spread to over 80 countries in the world.
“In India, the South African strain of Covid-19 has been detected in four returnees from South Africa. All travellers and their contacts tested and quarantined,” Indian Council of Medical Research’s (ICMR) director general Balram Bhargava said.
A returnee from Brazil had tested positive for the Brazilian variant of Sars-Cov-2 in the first week of February and the person along with their contacts had been tested and quarantined, the ICMR chief said. Like the South African variant, the Brazilian one was also being isolated and cultured at the National Institute of Virology, Pune, he said.
About the South African variant, he said the travellers tested positive included one who returned from Angola, one from Tanzania and two from South Africa. The NIV was attempting to isolate and culture the variant strain, he added.
Meanwhile, 187 returnees have tested positive for the United Kingdom variant of Covid-19 in India till now since its detection in December last year. “All confirmed cases are quarantined and treated. Their contacts have been isolated and tested. He said vaccines India possessed now have the potential to neutralize the UK variant of the virus.
The UK variant has spread to more than 80 countries so far, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) and carries a high transmissible rate of 70 per cent. Several countries have resorted to border restrictions and banning non-resident foreign nationals in order to curb its spread.
The Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan said disembarkation and mandatory RT-PCR tests were being done for travellers coming from the UK and genome sequencing was being done for those who tested positive. Bhushan pointed out that similar protocol might be used for flights arriving from South Africa and Brazil.
India’s Covid-19 cases rose by 9,121 and related deaths by 81 in the past 24 hours, taking the total to 10.93 million. Its death toll has now mounted to 155,813.
But the good thing was that as many as 17 states and UTs have reported no Covid-19 death in the last 24 hours, while six of them have recorded no new case during the period.
The recoveries have surged to 1,06,33,025 with 11,805 more patients having recuperated in a day, and India’s Recovery Rate of 97.32 percent is amongst the highest in the world, the health ministry said.
The difference between the recovered and active cases has further increased to 1,04,96,153, the ministry underlined.
“In another positive development, 31 states and UTs have reported a recovery rate of more than the national average. Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli have a recovery rate of 99.88 percent,” the ministry said.
Seventeen states and UTs reported no death in 24 hours. These are Lakshadweep, Sikkim, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Gujarat, Chandigarh, Jammu and Kashmir, Meghalaya, Ladakh, Manipur, Haryana, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Rajasthan, Nagaland, Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh and Daman and Diu (D&D) and Dadra and Nagar Haveli (D&N).
“Also, six states and UTs have reported no new case in the last 24 hours. These are Sikkim, Meghalaya, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Nagaland, Tripura and D&D and D&N,” the ministry stated.
India’s Covid-19 active cases dropped to 1.36 lakh and consist of just 1.25 percent of its total case tally.
Till 8 AM on February 16, the cumulative number of healthcare (HCW) and frontline workers (FLW) vaccinated against Covid-19 in the country has surpassed 87 lakh.
The Covid-19 vaccination drive was launched in India on January 16.
Till Monday, a total of 4,35,527 beneficiaries were administered the vaccine. Out of which, 2,99,797 beneficiaries were vaccinated across 10,574 sessions for the first dose and 1,35,730 HCWs received the second dose of vaccine.
Of the total 9,121 new cases recorded in the last 24 hours, 80.54 percent of the new cases are from five states while Maharashtra reported the highest daily new cases at 3,365, followed by Kerala with 2,884, and Tamil Nadu reported 455 new cases.
The ministry said 81 deaths were recorded during the period, and five states account for 70.37 percent of them.
Maharashtra saw the maximum casualties (23). Kerala follows with 13 deaths and Punjab has reported 10 new deaths.
As far the number of active cases were concerned, Kerala and Maharashtra were still causing concern with 61,550 and 37,383 active cases respectively accounting for 72% of the total active cases in the country.
