On Monday night, five persons on a flight that landed in Delhi from the UK capital London tested positive for coronavirus. It was not immediately clear if the five were carrying the new COVID-19 strain.
Nodal officer for COVID-19 at Delhi airport said the samples have been sent for laboratory testing and the infected passengers have been taken to a care centre.
“Five out of 266 passengers and crew members of a flight, which arrived at Delhi airport from London last night, have tested positive for COVID-19. Their samples have been sent to NCDC for research and they have been sent to a care centre,” the officer said.
Amid concerns over the new, highly-infectious strain of coronavirus that has emerged in the United Kingdom, airports in India have been put on alert and passengers arriving from Britain on direct or transit flights are being made to undergo RT-PCR COVID-19 tests.
The government has already announced a ban on flight arrivals from the UK starting midnight of Tuesday (December 22) till midnight of December 31.
“As a measure of abundant precaution, passengers arriving from UK in all transit flights (flights that have taken off or flights which are reaching India before 22nd Dec at 11.59 pm) should be subject to mandatory RT-PCR test on arrival at airports,” the ministry said.
On Monday evening, the Union Ministry of Civil Aviation announced that passengers coming to India from Britain will have to undergo mandatory COVID-19 tests.
