Bengaluru, Jan 3 (IANS): Karnataka Health Minister K. Sudhakar on Saturday said that one primary contact of a passenger who returned from the UK recently, tested positive for the new strain of coronavirus. With this, the number of people who tested positive for the new strain has touched 10 in the state.
"All 10 patients are undergoing treatment in a designated hospital," he said after inspecting a dry run in the model vaccination centre in Yelahanka General Hospital in the northern suburb of Bengaluru.
He said 10 people have so far been confirmed with the new strain of coronavirus infection and among these nine of them had returned from the UK while one is a contact - the mother of one of the UK returnees.
"All of them are undergoing treatment and are without any serious health condition. They will recover soon," he said.
The minister added, so far 32 people who returned from the UK and 10 of their contacts - a total of 42 persons - have been confirmed positive during the RT-PCR test.
"Their swab samples are sent to the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences (NIMHANS) for carrying out genome sequencing tests and 10 among them were confirmed to be infected by the new variant of the virus," he explained.
Sudhakar asserted while allaying fears that there was no need to worry.
"Only 10 are infected with a new variant virus infection in the state. It is not a big number given the number of people who disembarked in the last one month," he said.
According to him, a total of 5,068 passengers have returned to the state from the UK between November 25 and December 31 on two flights of Air India and British Airways.
"Of these 5,068 passengers, 4,238 passengers landed in Bengaluru from December 9 to December 31 and among those, 810 are from other states. Karnataka health and home departments took steps to inform their counterparts concerned of those states," he had said on Friday.
He also said that the number of Covid positive cases in Karnataka are declining while recoveries are increasing and at present there are only about 10,000 active cases across the state.