More cases of new coronavirus strain reported in Norway, Canada and on Portuguese island

File image of Madeira, a Portuguese island which has reported cases of the new coronavirus strain

Credit: Juergen Sack

Mutant strains of the coronavirus spread further across the world this weekend, as new cases were detected in Portugal, Norway and Canada, while India launched a manhunt for more than 150 travellers returning from the UK who provided false contact details. 

Health officials in Ontario said that two confirmed cases of the new and highly infectious coronavirus variant, which was first detected in the United Kingdom, has appeared in the Canadian province.

On the Portuguese island of Madeira, a number of cases of the new strain of the virus have been found, according to local officials, who did not give an exact figure. And Norway confirmed that at least two people who returned recently from Britain were infected with the variant.

Meanwhile, Indian officials have warned that around 150 passengers who returned from the UK to the Indian state of Telangana in the past two weeks had shared fake contact details and may be impossible to trace.

“We have been able to trace 1062 passengers out of 1216 who returned from the UK in the past two weeks. At least 20 of them have tested positive for the Covid.

However, another 154 have given fake contact details and a manhunt has been launched to trace them,” Dr G Srinivasa Rao, Telangana’s director for public health told Daily Telegraph.

Dr Rao admitted that the passengers might have moved to other States of India and that it would be extremely difficult to track them down.

“We are facing a herculean task of tracing the UK returnees. Many of them must have been infected and transmitted it to others,” he said.

India last week temporarily suspended flight services from the United Kingdom in the wake of the new strain of coronavirus disease, while the authorities have ordered states to collect the personal information of passengers who have returned from the UK since November 25.

India has also decided to test five per cent of its 1.3 billion-strong population to establish how widely the new strains of coronavirus have spread.

Indian authorities came under sharp criticism after two passengers on UK flights who tested positive on arrival in Delhi this week escaped from isolation centres and reached their homes in Andhra Pradesh and Punjab.

Police officials said both the virus carriers were detained after they received an alert from Delhi about their escape.