Four cases with the South African variant of the coronavirus have been detected in the country, the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) confirmed on Tuesday.
All four travelers had returned from South Africa and all their contacts were tested and quarantined, the ICMR said.
In a press conference, Dr. Balram Bhargava, Director General of ICMR, also said that a case of a Brazilian variant of SARS-CoV-2 was detected in the first week of February. “The virus strain has been successfully isolated and grown at ICMR-NIV-Pune. Experiments are underway to evaluate the efficacy of the vaccine. The South African and Brazilian variants are different from the UK variant, ”he said.
Bhargava also reported that up to 187 people tested positive for the UK variant in India.
On Tuesday, new daily Covid cases fell below 10,000 for the fourth time this month, bringing India’s tally to 1,09,25,710, while recent deaths remained below 100 for the 10th time this month. month.
A total of 9,121 new cases were reported in one day, while the death toll rose to 1,55,813 with 81 new deaths, data from the Health Ministry showed.
Earlier today, the Union Ministry of Health also reported that up to 17 states and UT have not reported “no deaths from COVID-19” in the last 24 hours, while six of them have not registered any new cases during the period.
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