Ever since the new mutant of Covid-19 has been reported in the UK in September, the world has been extremely precautious in preventing its spread across the globe. The new variant which is found to be 70 per cent more transmissible has caused rampant reinfection in England.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson declared a four-tier lockdown system in the country fearing the situation would go out of control. Though many of the countries had shut their borders and banned their flights to and from the UK, the new mutant has spread its claws to more than 15 countries by now.
France, Germany, Italy, South Africa, Australia, Switzerland, Canada, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Japan, Lebanon, Netherlands, Singapore and Nigeria are the countries that have recently reported the presence of the new virus variant. In all these countries, the spread took place through the people who arrive back in the countries from the UK.
With people arriving from all these countries, India too has taken the utmost precautions to prevent the spread of this virus. The health department is closely monitoring the people arriving from any of these countries that have confirmed the presence of the virus variant.
A tweet from the news agency ANI had reported that in a study conducted by the health department in Kozhikode, a slight variation in the viral strain has been observed. However, according to the state health minister KK Shailaja, the strain found in Kerala is not similar to the one found in the UK.