New Delhi: Five new cases of the UK strain of coronavirus were detected in India on Thursday, taking the total number of such patients to 25.
Four of the five new cases were reported by National Institute of Virology, Pune and one was sequenced in IGIB (Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology), Delhi, the health ministry has said.
All the 25 patients have been kept in isolation at designated health facilities, NDTV reported.
The highly infectious mutant strain, which first surfaced in the UK in September, was found to have reached India two days ago with travellers returning from the European nation.
The situation has pushed up concerns over a fresh spike in COVID-19 infection in the country, which has been brought under control from a high of 97,000 cases a day. The daily surge is now hovering around 20,000 cases.