Few cases of people infected with the Indian variant have so far been detected in the European Union (EU), where the British variant dominates. But he is under close surveillance. And quarantines of travelers arriving from India are now enforced in most member states.
Unsurprisingly, it is in the United Kingdom, where a large community of Britons of Indo-Pakistani origin resides, that the greatest number of contaminations of the B.1.617 variant has been noted, with 193 cases identified according to the latest data communicated. Thursday April 29 by the British Minister for Health. He also announced the discovery of 202 cases of another approaching Indian variant, B.1. 6172 and 5 cases of a third variant, B.1.6173, also very close. “These figures are worrying, and show a constant increase. The Indian variant is becoming the most identified variant in the UK besides the Kent variant (or English variant) within a few weeks ”, underlined Thursday evening Christina Pagel, virologist at the imperial college cited by the Guardian.
“The fact that this variant is progressing so quickly while we are still in a period of social restrictions is very worrying”, underlined for his part Paul Hunter professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia. Dr Susan Hopkins, Director of Covid Strategy at the Department of Health, however downplayed the threat: “There is currently no evidence that these variants are spreading in communities, that they cause more severe forms of the disease or that they partially escape vaccines. “
These cases are mainly linked to travelers returning from India forced, since April 23, to isolate themselves for ten days in very expensive hotels, near airports – the government has been strongly criticized for not having earlier put this measure in place. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who had planned an official trip to India at the end of April, was also delayed before announcing he was giving up.
“Exaggerated media treatment”
Twenty-two cases of contamination with the Indian variant have been identified in Germany, according to a report from the Robert-Koch public health institute, published Wednesday. But only a part of the positive tests being sequenced, it is likely that their number is higher. In Baden-Württemberg, a region which concentrates a third of the cases identified, the Indian variant has been present since February, when it was detected in a traveler returning from India.
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