77 cases of Indian Covid variant found in Britain

LONDON: The discovery of 77 UK cases of a coronavirus variant first detected in India could be a cause for concern, an expert has said.

Public Health England (PHE) reported that 73 cases of the B.1.617 variant have been confirmed in England as well as four cases in Scotland. The figures come from the latest update of PHE’s surveillance of the distribution of different variants across the UK, based on data up to April 7.

Officials have designated it a “variant under investigation” (VUI) rather than a “variant of concern” (VOC), such as the Manaus (Brazil) or South African variants.

Paul Hunter, professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia, said the variant features two “escape mutations” – E484Q and L452R – which “are causing people to be concerned”.

“There’s laboratory evidence that both of these are escape mutations,” he said. “Basically, applying what we know about other human coronaviruses would suggest that this is going to be even less controlled by vaccine. But we don’t know that for certain at the moment.”

In India, Covid-19 rates are soaring, with more than 13.9 million confirmed cases and 172,000 deaths. The country is not currently on the government’s “red list” of travel ban nations, which sees people who have been in those countries in the previous 10 days refused entry to the UK.

British or Irish nationals, or people with UK residency rights, are able to return from red list countries but must isolate in a quarantine hotel for 10 days. Boris Johnson has scaled down a planned trip to India due to its worsening Covid situation. The Prime Minister was due to spend four days in the south Asian country at the end of the month but, following talks with Narendra Modi’s administration, the “bulk” of the meetings could be fitted into one day. Prof Hunter said it is “not surprising” that the variant has come from India.

“If you think about where the main variants have arisen – South Africa, the UK, California, Brazil, and now India – all of these are countries that have really struggled to keep case numbers down.

“So it’s not surprising. India has got a huge pandemic, and therefore that’s where you’re going to be getting the variant.” PHE’s latest findings mean there are now seven VUIs and four VOCs being tracked by scientists in the UK.

A total of 600 cases of the variant of concern have been detected so far in the UK, an increase of 56 in a week.