Infected flyers asymptomatic

Quote: Not more lethal

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Clinically, this variant does not present different or severe symptoms, but it is much more transmissible: Rakesh Mishra, Director, CCMB

Box: Genome testing of all infected flyers

Samples of all international passengers who arrived in India from December 9-22 and tested positive will be subjected to genome sequencing as part of the Centre’s strategy to detect the mutant strain.

Box: 33K arrived since Nov 25

As per the Health Ministry, from November 25 to December 23, about 33,000 passengers disembarked at various Indian airports from the UK

All these passengers are being tracked and subjected by states and UTs to RT-PCR tests. So far 114 have been found positive

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 29

The six UK returnees, who tested positive for the mutated virus, are largely asymptomatic and not too sick as the strain is not known to cause severe disease.

Rakesh Mishra, Director, Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad, one of the 10 labs in the national genome sequencing consortium tracking Covid positive UK returnees, today said the variant “is not worse than the others and clinically does not present different or severe symptoms, but it is much more transmissible”.

“Most people with the mutant strain are asymptomatic as is the case with normal strain where 80 per cent of the cases are mild,” he said.

Of the six passengers with the variant, three were tested at NIMHANS, Bengaluru, two at CCMB, Hyderabad and one at NIV, Pune.

Mishra said the variant had a greater capacity to infect people and that was a matter of concern as India witnessed second largest number of cases after the US and variants could emerge from within the country as well.

“The mutant strain must be contained lest infections stress the healthcare system,” Mishra said, adding that Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) labs were currently studying whether the variant was already in India from some time since people had been coming from the UK for several weeks.