UP woman tests positive for South African variant of COVID-19 strain

A woman in Uttar Pradesh’s Mathura has been found infected with a South African strain of coronavirus. 

According to an official statement on Friday, the woman, identified as Heera Devi belongs to Barsana town of the district and she had tested positive for COVID-19 on March 3 at the Deen Dayal Veterinary University. The sample was found infected with the South African strain, reported ANI. 

The Chief Medical Officer (CMO) has ordered to conduct the tests in the entire village to which the woman belongs. The people who work in the ‘Dharamshala’ in Mathura, were the woman was staying earlier, will also be subjected to tests.

Meanwhile, two health workers from the district tested positive for COVID-19 despite having been inoculated with both does of the COVID-19 vaccine.

The latest Union health ministry update said that the total number of cases with the UK, South Africa and Brazil variants of SARS-CoV-2 in India has reached 795. On March 18, 400 cases were reported. With that, the infections by mutant strains have increased to 795 in the country.

Ashwini Choubey, the Minister for State for Health on March 16 told the Rajya Sabha that no case of reinfection by mutant variants of SARS-CoV-2 virus has been reported in the country so far.

As per the union health ministry update on Saturday (March 27) morning, in the last 24 hours, Uttar Pradesh recorded over 661 fresh COVID-19 cases, taking the total tally of active cases to 5,049. With four more fatalities, the death toll in the state rose to 8,773. A total of 5,96,451 patients have recovered from the infection in the state so far.