LUCKNOW: While three returnees -- a couple and their child -- from the United Kingdom, who arrived in Meerut recently, tested positive for COVID-19, the Ghaziabad health authorities are grappling with the task of tracing 30 travellers who gave fake addresses.
As per sources, all the three who had returned from London arrived in Meerut on December 14.
However, officials in the health department are not ruling out that the three may have contracted the new variant of the virus that was detected in the UK last week. Moreover, besides the three UK returnees, their mother, father and a sister-in-law have also tested positive for the deadly virus. Besides, nine members of the neighbouring family have also tested positive after an RT-PCR test.
On December 25, 63 new cases of COVID-19 were reported in Meerut alone, taking its total tally to 20,402. The death toll due to the coronavirus in the city stands at 390 whereas the active cases are at 1201, confirmed CMO Dr Akhilesh Kumar Singh.
Last week, a new strain of the coronavirus was first detected in the UK. As per experts, this strain is more transmissible than other SARS-CoV-2 variants. Following the discovery of a new variant of coronavirus that is spreading fast in Britain, several countries have imposed travel bans to the United Kingdom.
Meanwhile, in Ghaziabad, sources in the heath department claimed that of the 35 travellers from the UK, 30 had given wrong addresses, while five others refused to give their samples for COVID-19 testing.
A new highly transmissible variant of the coronavirus -- VUI-202012/01-- was detected in the UK earlier this month.
The state government in its standard operating procedure (SOP) had directed that those who had arrived from the UK between November 23 and December 8 had to be in 28-day isolation and should be tested using the RT-PCR technique if they showed symptoms. Those who came later would need to be tested mandatorily.
Health department officials said that they had a list of 231 confirmed travellers who mentioned Ghaziabad as their destination address, but 76 of them were not found as they had either left for their home districts or even returned to the UK. Of the 231, 221 were traced. Samples of 110 were collected so far while samples of 111 were pending, said the sources.
Of the 110 samples tested, 26 test reports have come negative. Of the remaining 111, 76 travellers would be cross-notified to their home districts. Among the pending 35, five were found at home and refused to give samples. The addresses of the other 30 could not be traced as they were wrong, said the sources.
The department had initially received a list of 334 travellers who had a Ghaziabad address.
The UP government has already laid down a set of SOPs with special focus on tracking those travellers who had returned from the UK on December 9 or thereafter. As per the SOP, the UK returnees would mandatorily be tested through the RT-PCR method and would have to stay in home quarantine.
If tested positive, they would be isolated and a part of their sample would also be sent for genome sequencing to figure out if they are infected with prevalent variant of Sars-Cov-2 or the latest variant, VUI-202012/01.