Fled Delhi By Train, AP Woman Tests Positive for UK COVID Strain

She had returned to Andhra Pradesh on 23 December and was found to have contracted the UK COVID variant.

A 47-year-old woman, who slipped past state authorities after testing positive for coronavirus at the Delhi airport, has tested positive for the infectious UK COVID strain.

She had returned to Rajamahendravaram in Andhra Pradesh on 23 December and was found to have contracted the new mutated variant of coronavirus.

The woman was in the news earlier, as she had travelled in a train from Delhi to Rajahmundry with her 22-year-old son. She was later traced and placed in quarantine at the East Godavari district COVID-19 hospital.

For now, according to the state authorities, the woman is the only one in the state with the “70 per cent more transmissible” coronavirus mutation that was first detected in the UK, reported PTI.

The Andhra Pradesh’s Commissioner of Health and Family Welfare Department maintained that there was no evidence of expansion of the UK variant in the state. “A woman belonging to Rajahmundry tested positive for the UK variant. However, there is no spread of the same in Andhra from her. Her son, who travelled with her, tested negative,” the statement read.

1,423 people have travelled to Andhra Pradesh from the UK in the past few days of which 1,406 of them have been traced and 12 of them tested positive for coronavirus, the State Health Commissioner said citing a report of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) in Hyderabad.

Meanwhile, 6,364 primary contacts of the 1,406 persons were also tested, of which 12 were found COVID-19 positive. The passengers who had travelled with her by the same first AC coach on AP Express were also traced and they tested negative for COVID.

As per the Health Ministry, six Indians – three in Bengaluru, two in Hyderabad, and one in Pune – have been infected by the UK coronavirus variant.

(With PTI inputs)