As many as 50 cases of Delta Plus variant of Covid-19 have been recorded across 11 states in India, government sources said on Friday.
The Union Health Ministry, during a press conference earlier in the day, had informed that as many as 48 Delta Plus cases have been reported in the country, while the government sources told ANI that 50 cases of Delta Plus have been reported. The sources further said that deaths of two Covid-19 patients positive for the Delta Plus variant have been reported in Madhya Pradesh so far, both of whom had not taken vaccines.
The Delta Plus Covid-19 positive cases reported are from Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab, Gujarat, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Odisha, Rajasthan, Jammu and Karnataka.
“Wherever you find a cluster, you have to contain it,” said Director-General of Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) Dr Balram Bhargava.
The government, however, said that at this time the spread is still ‘very localised’.
The virus strain has been isolated and is being cultured by the ICMR – NIV and tests to check its resistance to existing COVID vaccines were ongoing, the govt added. The government has also said ‘Delta Plus’ variant cases had been reported from 12 other countries, including the US and UK.
Meanwhile, India registered as many as 51,667 new Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours, informed the Union Health Ministry. At 2.98 per cent, the daily positivity rate in the country remained below 5 per cent for the 18 days on the trot. The tally of daily recoveries outnumbered the count of daily new cases for straight 43 days. Also, the country saw a total of 64,527 recoveries in the last 24 hours, pushing its overall count to 2,91,28,267.
The country witnessed 1,329 Covid-related fatalities in the last 24 hours, taking the overall death toll to 3,93,310. Seeing a slight dip, India now has an active caseload of 6,12,868. A total of 39,95,68,448 samples tested up to June 24. Of which 17,35,781 samples were tested yesterday,” informed Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)
WITH ANI INPUTS