‘Mutant Coronavirus’ Spreads Briskly In UK. MoHFW Calls An Emergency Meet.

Health Ministry Call for an emergency meet after ‘mutant coronavirus' spread rapidly.

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) aka Health Ministry of India has called for an emergency meeting today of its joint monitoring group on COVID-19 to talk through about the ‘mutant coronavirus’ that is spreading at a rapid rate in the United Kingdom (UK). Britain has already notified that this new strain of coronavirus is ‘out of control’ and since Sunday it has imposed a strict stay-at-home lockdown across the UK.

The joint monitoring group of Covid-19 which is led by the Director General of Health and Services (DGHS) will be discussing the mutant adaptation of corona virus reported from the UK. Roderico H Ofrin, who is the spokesperson of India  at the World Health Organization (WHO) is also a member of the joint monitoring group and is expected to be present today at the meeting with the health ministry.

Matt Hancock the British Health Secretary on Sunday said, “We acted very quickly and decisively.” Until the roll out of the vaccines is in full swing one third of England’s population could stay at home justifying the ‘stay at home’ order, ban on family gatherings over Christmas and shutting down of non-essential shops.” He added “Unfortunately, the new strain was out of control. We have got to get it under control.”

Experts and scientists all around the world are worried about the mutation of the coronavirus as the vaccines produced by various drug firms are still at early stages of rolling out the vaccines. In September scientists first discovered the new variant which they believe is 70% more contagious. On Friday a government agency known as Public Health England raised an alarm revealing the seriousness of the new strain.

Chris Witty, Britain’s Chief Medical Officer said, while the new strain was more infections than the earlier one, “there is no current evidence to suggest that it causes a higher mortality rate or that it has after effects vaccines and treatment, although urgent work is underway to confirm this”, a prominent news agency reported.

European countries have banned several flights to and from Britain. India has yet not taken any policy decision to ban flights from the UK but the matter will be given serious consideration. The countries of Netherlands, Belgium and Germany have already banned flights from the UK. Germany has also banned flights from South Africa as another variant of coronavirus was discovered there. Italy is also joining to ban flights from the UK followed by Austria said the foreign ministry and health ministry respectively.

The addition on the number of cases of Coronavirus in India on Sunday is 26,624 number of new infection in the past 24 hours taking the tally now to 1,00,31,223 according to the data provided by the health ministry of India