UK investigates effect of Indian Covid-19 variant
The UK’s health officials have launched an investigation into whether the newly found Indian variant of Covid-19 spreads faster and is vaccine resistant, after cases of the variant were found in England and Scotland.
Chief medical adviser for NHS Test and Trace Dr Susan Hopkins said today that around 70 cases of the Indian variant have been found in the UK, with some positive tests not linked with international travel.
However, Dr Hopkins told the BBC that there was not enough information to classify it as a “variant of concern”, while also adding that it is too soon to add India to the UK’s red list of countries.
Public Health England reports that 73 of the Indian variant cases have been in England and four have been in Scotland.
“We have seen a couple of cases [of the Indian variant] that haven’t arisen from travel but we’re still trying to undergo the investigations to look in great detail at where they might have acquired it from,” she said.
“To escalate it up the ranking we need to know that it is increased transmissibility, increased severity or vaccine evading, and we just don’t have that yet.”
India has recorded 150,000 Covid-19 cases a day for the past three weeks, sparking calls that the country should be placed on the red list.
This would see a total ban on arrivals from India for non-UK nationals, while UK nationals would be forced to go into hotel quarantine if arriving from the country.
The UK’s decision to not put India on the red list comes as Boris Johnson is set to visit the country in just over one week’s time.
The long-planned trip has been scaled back from its original schedule and will see Johnson meet Indian PM Narendra Modi on 26 April.