17 Delhi residents have tested positive for UK strain of coronavirus till date

A total of 17 Delhi residents have tested positive for the new coronavirus strain first detected in the UK till date and 10 of them have been discharged from hospital after recovery, sources said on Saturday.

After the new strain was detected in the UK in December, the Delhi government had started a door-to-door medical check-up of people who had arrived from the UK previously and persons who came in their contact in the city. Flights between India and the UK were also suspended after the new strain was detected there.

At least 68 people, including those who returned from the UK and their contacts, were found infected with the coronavirus during the exercise, a source said. All were sent to a separate isolation unit on the premises of the LNJP Hospital.

"Out of them, 17 have tested positive for the coronavirus strain till date. Ten of them have been discharged and just seven such cases are left at the isolation facility of the hospital right now. These cases are part of the door-to-door exercise that was started after the suspension of flights in December," a source said.

Sources on Friday had said that 14 residents of the national capital had been found infected with the mutant variant of COVID-19 that was first detected in the UK.

Three more people, who had tested positive for the virus earlier but whose genome sequencing reports were awaited, have now been found to be infected with the new strain, another source said, adding that no new case has come up on Saturday.

Delhi recorded 519 fresh COVID-19 cases on Saturday. The infection tally in the city stood at 6.29 lakh and the death toll mounted to 10,666, they said.