BHUBANESWAR: Three persons from Odisha were among 736 in the country who were found with UK variant of Covid-19 virus, said S K Singh, the director of National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), in New Delhi on Wednesday.
Asked about the NCDC report, additional chief secretary (health) Pradipta Kumar Mohapatra confirmed that UK variant of the virus was found on three persons in December, days after they returned to the state and were found to be Covid positive. “They were treated in a private hospital in Bhubaneswar and they recovered. There was no further spread from them,” Mohapatra said.
He added the government had not revealed about the virus strain earlier because it didn’t want to spread panic. “But we followed all protocols required for the same,” he added. “I am commenting about it now because the Centre has revealed about the variants in all the states after reviewing the entire situation. Those affected in our state had already recovered,” Mohapatra explained. Sources said three persons of a family had returned from UK and had tested positive for Covid-19. They had very mild symptoms of the virus.
On December 23, a 34-year old male was the first UK-returnee to the capital city to test positive. A resident of Bhubaneswar, he had returned from UK on December 18. On December 25, a four-year-old returned, who had returned from UK, had also tested positive. The government had then sounded an alert at Biju Patnaik International Airport to screen passengers returning from UK, identify them and test them. The aggressive screening had been put in place as the new strain of the virus was believed to be spreading faster.
Till December 30 last year, a total of 184 people had returned from the UK to Odisha, out of which 160 had undergone test and of which four of them were positive. The government had also traced 44 of their contacts, who had also undergone tests with three returning positive.
The NCDC has said 771 cases of coronavirus variants were detected in 18 states of which 736 were UK variant, 34 were from South Africa and one was Brazilian variant.