India’s Covid cases above 24 million as mutant spreads across globe
The variant was found in Canada, US, UK, and Singapore among other countries.
India is in the grip of the highly transmissible B.1.617 variant of the coronavirus, first detected there and now appearing across the globe. The number of recorded COVID-19 infections climbed above 24 million.
People infected by the variant included travellers in Panama and Argentina who had arrived from India or Europe. In the Caribbean, cases of the Indian variant have been detected in Aruba, Dutch Sint Maarten and the French department of Guadeloupe. The mutant strain has also been detected in Britain, as well as in Singapore.
Public Health England said the total number of confirmed cases of the variant had more than doubled in the past week to 1,313 across the United Kingdom.
Medical journal The Lancet said restrictions on movement along with international support measures were urgently needed to stem “an unprecedented public health crisis”.
The fast-spreading variant first found in India has caused alarm around the globe. It has led to big outbreaks in neighbouring states such as Nepal, and has also been detected far afield in Britain, the Americas and elsewhere in Asia.
India is the world’s largest vaccine producer but has run low on stocks in the face of the huge demand. As of Thursday, it had fully vaccinated just over 38.2 million people, or about 2.8% of a population of about 1.35 billion, government data shows.
