THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Six persons who returned to the state from the United Kingdom have tested positive for the new Covid-19 variant which is considered to be more contagious.
The affected included two family members each from Kozhikode and Alappuzha, one each from Kottayam and Kannur.
Health Minister KK Shailaja said that all the infected people were under hospital isolation. “All the contacts of people infected are under surveillance. There is no need for panic though we need to step up the vigil,” said the minister.
The infected persons included a 35-year old native from Kozhikode and his two-year-old daughter; a woman (30) and man (36) from Alappuzha; a woman (20) from Kottayam and a man (29) from Kannur.
“The new virus strain is highly contagious. Even though it is treatable, we need to be careful,” said the minister. She requested the returnees to come forward with voluntary disclosure and those in contact list to get in touch with the health department.
The state has been monitoring the passengers flying down from European countries following a national alert on December 23.
It has found that 39 passengers mostly from UK have tested Covid-19 positive. Their samples have been sent to National Institute of Virology, Pune, for genome sequencing to find out if they had the mutant variant.
The first 12 samples were tuned negative for the UK strain. The six people detected with the UK strain infection might have landed here after December 14, said the minister.
Nationally, 38 people have been found to be positive for the new strain, in the test conducted at the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) Labs, a consortium of 10 labs including NIV, on Monday.
The direction has been issued to trace and isolate the co-travellers, family contacts and others.
The Civil Aviation Ministry has extended the temporary travel ban for flights between UK and India from December 31 to January 7.
The ban was introduced on December 23. As many as 1900 people have landed in the state from Europe between December 9 and 23.
Stressing on the need to be more cautious, and following the Covid-19 protocol, the minister said the constant vigil has helped in reducing the number of daily cases which was expected to cross 20,000 at one stage.
“There has been a rise in cases after election. But it is still in the manageable limit,” she said.