Amid new coronavirus strain scare, two passengers from UK test Covid-19 positive in Kolkata

According to reports, five passengers and crew members of a UK flight, which landed in Delhi on Monday night with 266 people on board, tested positive for novel coronavirus.

Those five people have been sent to a covid care centre while other passengers and crew members of the flight, who tested negative for the virus, have been asked to be in quarantine for a week.

In a similar incident, samples of 24 out of 222 passengers of an Air India flight that landed in Kolkata from London on Sunday were tested and two of them came positive, officials said.

These two passengers have been admitted to a city health facility while others of the flight have been asked to undergo quarantine for 14 days.

Meanwhile, a passenger, who landed in Chennai from Britain via Delhi, and another flyer from the UK who arrived in Karnataka, have tested positive for Covid-19.

A senior official of the Union Health Ministry said that samples of all the flyers from the UK, who have tested positive for novel coronavirus, will be further tested to confirm whether they have contracted the new strain of SARS-CoV-2.

As of yet, the Government of India has not reported any case of the new strain of Covid-19.

In the wake of the new Covid-19 strain, the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) has already announced to temporarily suspend all passenger flights between India and the UK from 11:59 pm. on Tuesday (Dec 22) till Dec 31 midnight.

Meanwhile, all the passengers arriving from the UK in transit flights before 11:59 pm. on Tuesday (Dec 22) will be subjected to mandatory RT-PCR test on arrival at the Indian airports, according to the latest guidelines issued by the MoCA.