COVID-19: 20 Flyers From UK Test Positive In 2 Days

Picture courtesy: PTI

New Delhi: About 20 passengers and crew travelling from Heathrow airport tested COVID-19 positive at five international airports — Delhi, Amritsar, Kolkata, Ahmedabad and Chennai.

All passengers and crew of Air India flights originating from London were tested using RT-PCR method in the last couple of days, reported The Times of India.

The swab samples were sent to Pune’s National Institute of Virology to check if the virus is of a different strain. It was primarily to check whether the virus is virulent in nature as observed recently in England.

Five flyers and crew returned COVID-19 positive result at the Delhi’s IGI airport while seven flyers and one crew member tested positive at Amritsar international airport. Also, two flyers in Kolkata, four in Ahmedabad and one in Chennai also tested positive on Tuesday.

Amid the new COVID-19 viral strain considered a super spreader found in the UK, the Indian government has temporarily banned all passenger flights originating from the UK. The UK’s viral strain is said to 70 per cent more transmissible.