ICMR said no country has reported isolation and cultivation of the UK coronavirus strain (representative)
New Delhi:
India has successfully bred the new coronavirus strain, which originated in the UK, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said Saturday.
In a tweet, the ICMR claimed that no country has yet reported successful isolation and culture of the UK variant of SARS-CoV-2.
Culture is the process of growing cells under controlled conditions, usually outside their natural environment.
“UK variant of the virus, with all of the characteristic changes, has now been successfully isolated and grown at the National Institute of Virology (NIV) from clinical samples collected from UK returnees,” the ICMR said.
India is successfully growing the new viral strain on the horizon (UK variant of SARS-CoV-2). # ICMRFIGHTSCOVID19# IndiaFightsCOVID19#CoronaUpdatesInIndia#COVID-19# Unite2FightCorona@MoHFW_INDIA@PIB_India@RTLnews@drharshvardhan@AshwiniKChoubeyicmr_nivpic.twitter.com/vaCMQMSHOJ
– ICMR (@ICMRDELHI) January 2, 2021
The research authority said vero cell lines were used by the scientists at ICMR-NIV to culture the UK variant of the virus.
The UK had recently announced that the newly identified strain of the virus found in their population was up to 70 percent more contagious.
A total of 29 people have tested positive for the new British variant of SARS-CoV-2 in India so far, the Union Ministry of Health said Friday.
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