NEW DELHI: Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan on Wednesday reviewed the status of travellers coming from the UK to India who were found COVID-19 positive before the temporary flight bans came into effect from December 23.
The states for which the detailed review was carried out included Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Goa, Punjab, Gujarat and Kerala.
A number of travellers have been found COVID-19 positive but the results of their genome sequence tests, which can confirm whether they carry the mutant virus identified in the UK, are still awaited.
The secretary also discussed in detail the standard operating procedures related to the epidemiological surveillance and response in the context of a new variant of SARS-CoV-2 virus detected in European countries that is being reported to be more infectious and is affecting the younger population.
The SOP had said that all those who have arrived in India since November 25 and tested positive for COVID-19 must be subjected to spike gene RTPCR test to assess whether they are inflicted with the mutant SARS CoV 2.
In the virtual meeting on Saturday, the states were advised to access the details of passengers from the UK to India from the online portal AIR-SUVIDHA and Bureau of Immigration and were also asked to send the samples of those found positive to the laboratories identified for genome sequencing.
The list of six identified laboratories along with the contact details of their nodal officers was also shared with the states.
These labs include CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, Delhi, CSIR- Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad, DBT- Institute of Life Sciences, Bhubaneswar, DBT-In Stem-NCBS, Bangalore, DBT-National Institute of Biomedical Genomics, Kalyani, West Bengal and ICMR- National Institute of Virology, Pune.
The number of such designated labs would increase over time and their details would be shared with states, said the Union health ministry.