4 detected with SA variant of COVID-19 in India, one with Brazil strain: Govt

New Delhi: For the first time in India, four people were detected with the South Africa variant of SARS-CoV-2 and one tested positive for the Brazil variant in the country, the Centre said on Tuesday.

In India, the South Africa strain has been detected in four returnees - one from Angola, one from Tanzania and two from South Africa in January, ICMR Director General Balram Bhargava said.

"The ICMR-NIV is attempting to isolate and culture the SA variant strain from the samples of these four individual returnees," he said.

One Brazil returnee has tested positive for the Brazil variant of SARS-CoV-2 in the first week of February. The traveller and contacts have been tested and quarantined.

Meanwhile, the number of people who have tested positive for the UK variant of SARS-CoV-2 in the country has climbed to 187. There has been no mortality, Bhargava said.

Also on Tuesday, the Union Health Ministry said that as many as 17 states and UTs have reported no COVID-19 death in the last 24 hours, while six of them have recorded no new case during the period.

The daily new infections fell below 10,000 for the fourth time this month taking India's tally of COVID-19 cases to 1,09,25,710, while fresh fatalities remained below 100 for the tenth time this month.

A total of 9,121 new cases were reported in a day, while the death toll increased to 1,55,813 with 81 new fatalities, the data updated at 8 am showed.

The recoveries have surged to 1,06,33,025 with 11,805 more patients having recuperated in a day, and India's Recovery Rate of 97.32 percent is amongst the highest in the world.

The difference between the recovered and active cases has further increased to 1,04,96,153, the ministry underlined. India's COVID-19 active cases dropped to 1.36 lakh and consist of just 1.25 percent of its total case tally.

Maharashtra and Kerala, which account for 72 per cent of the total Coronavirus active cases in the country, have been asked to substantially increase RT-PCR testing. Addressing a press briefing, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said both these states have 61,550 and 37,383 active cases, respectively. Responding to a question on the reason behind more active cases in these two states, he said one of the reasons might be that the number of RT-PCR tests have gone down.

Meanwhile, Delhi recorded 94 fresh COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, the lowest in over nine months, while the positivity rate slipped to 0.17 per cent in the city. One fatality was also registered, taking the death toll due to the viral disease to 10,894 in the national Capital. In another turn of events, as many as 103 residents of an apartment complex in Bengaluru's Bommanahalli area tested positive for COVID-19 after a party was held in the building. Out of the total 103 persons who got infected, 96 are aged above 60 years.