With the Ministry of Health of the Union confirming detection Of the South African and Brazilian variants of the coronavirus in the country, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi attacked the government on Wednesday, saying it is being extremely negligent and trusting of Covid-19.

“GOI is being very negligent and trusting of Covid-19. It’s not over yet, ”Gandhi said in a tweet.

Five people who recently returned to India have been detected with the infectious variants of Covid-19 found in South Africa and Brazil, the Health Ministry said on Tuesday.

Dr Balram Bhargava, Director General of the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR), said that India’s SARS-CoV-2 Genomic Consortium (INSACOG) had detected the South African variant, associated with the faster spread of the infection with the new coronavirus, in four people in January, while another person had been detected with the infectious Brazilian variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus earlier this month.

Of the four with the South African variant, known as ‘B.1.351’, one had returned from Angola, one from Tanzania and two from South Africa.

Bhargava said that the National Institute of Virology, Pune, was “trying to isolate and cultivate” the South African variant, while the Brazilian variant has been isolated “successfully”. “Experiments are underway to evaluate the effectiveness of the vaccine,” he said of the Brazilian variant.

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