A first case of the Indian variant of Covid-19, responsible for an epidemic outbreak in India, has been detected in Switzerland, the health authorities of this country announced on Saturday April 24.
“The first case of the Indian variant of Covid-19 has been detected in Switzerland”, announced in a tweet the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health. He said the case had been detected in a person who arrived in the country after having passed through a European airport, without giving further details.
India places on “red list”
Switzerland is currently considering classifying India as a high-risk country and adding it to its “red list”, said the country’s health authorities. People from countries placed on the red list must observe a ten-day quarantine upon their arrival in Switzerland.
The “Indian” variant of the coronavirus was detected for the first time in Belgium among a group of students who arrived this month from India via the Parisian airport of Roissy, we learned on Thursday April 22 , from an official source in Brussels.
A total of 20 Indian students had tested positive for the new variant and placed in quarantine in the Flemish cities of Aalst (11) and Leuven (9), where they had arrived in mid-April for training in nursing.
According to several experts, they would have been victims of a “super contaminator”, perhaps within their group, during the bus trip which brought them from the Paris region to Belgium.
“These students have been in strict isolation since their arrival. 20 of the 43 students are so far infected with the + Indian + variant”, tweeted microbiologist Emmanuel André, from the Catholic University of Louvain.
Virologist Marc Van Ranst, another prominent Belgian expert in the crisis, told Flemish radio that the group landed in Roissy on April 12, and that five days later several students fell ill, with symptoms of the virus. .
The analyzes carried out in the reference laboratory of the University of Louvain made it possible to diagnose the presence of the Indian variant, already identified in the United Kingdom and which is causing concern.
Quarantine of travelers coming from India
Many concerned countries have closed their doors to India, temporarily suspending their air links, or reducing passenger traffic, such as Germany. From Sunday April 25, Berlin will indeed classify India as a high-risk zone, Health Minister Jens Spahn said on Saturday April 24.
“The new virus mutation discovered in India worries us a lot. In order not to endanger our vaccination campaign, we must significantly reduce passenger traffic with India”, justified the minister in an interview with the media group Funke.
From Sunday, only citizens of German nationality will be able to travel from India to Germany, the minister said. They will be allowed to travel only on presentation of a negative test done shortly before the flight “and will have to quarantine for 14 days immediately after their arrival”, said Spahn. These rules should de facto reduce traffic between the two countries to the bare minimum.
Several countries have taken similar measures to prevent a worsening of the pandemic due to this new variant, including Canada, the United Kingdom or Kuwait.
France has also decided to apply the quarantine to passengers from India and four other countries (Chile, South Africa and Argentina, but also from Guyana, where the Brazilian variant is spreading rapidly. ), since Saturday April 24.
(Re) see: Covid-19: a possible new variant in India, the second most affected country in the world
An Indian variant already present in the UK
The British government on April 19 banned the entry into the United Kingdom of travelers from India, allowing access only to British residents, who will have to pay out of pocket for a quarantine at the hotel.
Health Minister Matt Hancock told the House of Commons that 103 cases of the Indian variant have been identified in the UK, “the vast majority of which have links to international travel and have been detected by our border tests.”
He explained that the samples had been analyzed to see if this new variant had any “characteristics of concern”, such as vaccine resistance.
“After studying the data, and as a precaution, we made the difficult but vital decision to put India on the red list.”, from Friday, April 23 in the morning, he declared in front of the deputies. This decision obliges any British and Irish resident entering the country to observe a ten-day quarantine in a hotel at their own expense.
Due to the situation in India, Prime Minister Boris Johnson canceled a trip planned for the end of April in the country, his first major trip abroad since taking office, his services announced on Monday.
“In view of the current situation in terms of coronavirus, Prime Minister Boris Johnson will not be able to visit India next week”Downing Street said in a statement.
Tory leader to meet with Indian counterpart Narendra Modi instead “later this month” about their “ambitious plans for a future partnership between the United Kingdom and India”. According to the same source, “they are looking forward to meeting in person later this year”.
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