The Union health ministry on Sunday called an urgent meeting of its Joint Monitoring Group (JMG) after a new strain of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) surfaced in the United Kingdom.
The Director General of Health Services (DGHS), will hold a meeting on Monday morning to discuss the issue of the mutated variant of the coronavirus reported from the UK. WHO’s India representative Dr. Roderico H Ofrin, who is also a member of the JMG, is likely to participate in the meeting.
According to the health ministry website, the JMG has been formed to review regularly the global/ Indian situation and provide recommendations on technical matters to the ministry. It would also monitor the outbreak situation.
Belgium and the Netherlands suspended flights from the UK on Sunday and several other countries were weighing similar measures to stop a new, fast-spreading virus strain that UK PM Boris Johnson says is up to 70% “more transmissible” and other UK authorities describe as “out of control”.
Around 16.4 million people entered the strictest “tier four” measures from Sunday, or 31 percent of England’s population.
European countries began closing their borders to travelers from the United Kingdom as British health secretary Matt Hancock said on Sunday that the government has imposed a strict Christmas lockdown in London and southeast England because the new strain of the coronavirus was “out of control”.
Scientists first discovered the new variant in a patient in September, Susan Hopkins of Public Health England told Sky News. She confirmed the figure given by Johnson that the new virus strain could be 70 percent more transmissible while saying this was an initial figure.