New Delhi: Twenty more people have tested positive for the new UK variant of SARS-CoV-2, taking the total number of such cases in the country to 58.
The new cases have been identified at the National Institute of Virology (NIV) Pune.
"The total number of cases infected with the new strain of the novel Coronavirus first reported in the UK now stands at 58," the Union Health ministry said.
All these persons have been kept in single room isolation in designated healthcare facilities by respective state governments.
Their close contacts have also been put under quarantine. Comprehensive contact tracing has been initiated for co-travellers, family contacts and others. Genome sequencing on other specimens is going on, the ministry added.
The situation is under careful watch and regular advice is being provided to the states for enhanced surveillance, containment, testing and dispatch of samples to INSACOG labs.
Of the 58, the mutated UK strain was detected in eight samples at National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), New Delhi, 11 in the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB), Delhi, in one in National Institute of Biomedical Genomics (NIBMG), Kalyani (near Kolkata), 25 in the National Institute of Virology in Pune, three in Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) in Hyderabad and ten was sequenced in National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences Hospital (NIMHANS) Bengaluru.
Meanwhile, India recorded 16,375 new cases of Coronavirus, the lowest in over six months, taking the country's COVID-19 caseload to 1,03,56,844, according to the Union Health ministry data updated on Tuesday.
The death toll increased to 1,49,850 with 201 new fatalities, the data updated at 8 am showed.
The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 99,75,958 pushing the national recovery rate to 96.32 per cent, while the COVID-19 case fatality rate stands at 1.45 per cent.