India to test travelers from Brazil, S. Africa, UK after detecting new virus strains

NEW DELHI — India will make COVID-19 molecular tests mandatory for people arriving directly or indirectly from the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil in a bid to contain the spread of more infectious virus variants found in those countries.

India, which has reported the highest number of overall COVID-19 cases after the United States, detected the South African variant in four people last month and the Brazilian one in one person this month.

The government has said the South African and Brazilian strains can more easily infect a person's lungs than the UK mutation. India has so far reported 187 cases of infection with the UK variant.

The government late on Wednesday said airlines would be required from next week to segregate inbound travelers from those countries. India does not have direct flights with Brazil and South Africa, and most people travelling from these countries generally transit through Middle Eastern airports.

"All the travelers arriving from/transiting through flights originating in United Kingdom, Europe or the Middle East shall be mandatorily subjected to self-paid confirmatory molecular tests on arrival," India's Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said in a statement.

All flyers will also have to carry a recent COVID-negative report before boarding any flight to India, except in extraordinary circumstances like death in a family.

India has so far reported about 11 million coronavirus cases and more than 155,000 deaths. Cases have come down sharply since a mid-September peak of nearly 100,000 a day.

A government serological survey released this month, however, said nearly 300 million of India's 1.35 billion people may already have been infected by the virus.

The country has also administered 9.2 million vaccine doses since starting its campaign on Jan. 16.

-reuters-

Indian wedding takes on otherworldly feel after bride tests positive for COVID-19

BARAN, INDIA — Traditional Indian wedding finery gave way to hazmat suits and masks in a remote north Indian village, after the bride tested positive for the coronavirus just hours before her marriage, a local health official said.

The couple, whose names were not made public, decided to go ahead with the ceremony on Sunday in the courtyard of the COVID quarantine center in Baran in the western state of Rajasthan - their protective gear giving it an otherworldly feel.

Under a bright red canopy and in front of the holy fire, the bride and groom exchanged garlands wearing matching blue hazmat suits, visors and face masks.

The priest, looking like an astronaut in a white hazmat suit and matching hood, chanted verses from Hindu scriptures while traditional wedding songs played in the background.

The bride had been admitted to the center, where patients are kept under watch, after she and a family member tested positive, health official Rajendra Meena told Reuters partner ANI.

"We consulted with the families and they agreed to get married in the quarantine center without any elaborate rituals," he said. Afterwards, both bride and groom were placed in isolation at the center, part of a network of quarantine facilities set up in almost every village.

Weddings in India are often an elaborate and noisy affair, with hordes of relatives and other guests taking part in celebrations. But several states have imposed restrictions around numbers allowed at marriage gatherings.

India has the world's second highest COVID-19 caseload after the United States, with over 9.6 million confirmed cases.

Infections have fallen since hitting a peak in September in spite of a busy festival season last month, which saw bustling markets and crowded streets full of shoppers.

-reuters-

India's coronavirus infections rise to 6.69 million

BENGALURU — India's total coronavirus cases rose by 61,267 in the last 24 hours to 6.69 million on Tuesday morning, data from the health ministry showed.

Deaths from COVID-19 infections rose by 884 to 103,569, the ministry said.

India's death toll from the novel coronavirus rose past 100,000 on Saturday, only the third country in the world to reach that bleak milestone, after the United States and Brazil, and its epidemic shows no sign of abating.

Last week, India further eased restrictions and permitted states to open schools and movie theaters.

-reuters-

India passes 500,000 coronavirus cases

India now has more than 500,000 confirmed coronavirus cases, according to government figures released Saturday that showed a record daily leap of 18,500 new infections.

Authorities said a total of 15,685 people had died after another 385 fatalities were added to the toll in 24 hours.

The pandemic is not expected to peak in India for several more weeks and experts say the number of cases could pass one million before the end of July.

Some state governments are considering imposing new lockdowns. A hard-hitting nationwide lockdown that started March 25 is gradually being eased because of the damage caused to the economy.

The virus has particularly hit India's densely populated cities and there are now major concerns for New Delhi which has overtaken Mumbai with nearly 80,000 cases.

The city's government has predicted it would have 500,000 infections by the end of July. It is already using railway carriages to house patients and has taken over hotels and banquet halls to relieve the pressure on hard-pressed hospitals.

The government has been criticized over a lack of testing that experts say has hidden the true number of cases in India, which now stands at 509,000.

The country is currently fourth in the world for the number of infections, behind the United States, Brazil and Russia, though it has a much lower death toll.

In a bid to boost tracing efforts, Delhi authorities have called in 33,000 health workers to screen about 2 million people in sealed off zones across the city of 20 million people.

But cities across the nation of 1.3 billion people are braced for a huge wave of new cases in coming weeks.

"It is likely that we're going into a state, unless we are able to reinforce a strict physical distancing mechanism or a hard lockdown, where the rate of infection will continue to increase," said Anant Bhan, a leading public health expert.

"Unlike China, where the pandemic was relatively more concentrated around Wuhan and a few other cities, India has a more diffused spread that makes it a bit more challenging for the healthcare system," he told AFP.

Bhan said India might see several peaks in coming months because the spread of the virus "is variable across the country."

Agence France-Presse