PM’s India trip still on – amid fears over variant

FEARS are growing over the Indian variant of coronavirus – as the country is kept off the travel red list ahead of a visit there by the Prime Minister.

There are 77 confirmed cases of the variant in England and Scotland, as of April 14.

Vaccines are suspected to work less well against the Indian variant, and its mutations may enable it to spread more easily.

But Downing Street has insisted that Boris Johnson’s trip to India, where cases exceeded 200,000 a day this week, will go ahead at the end of the month.

This raises questions over whether the country is escaping a travel ban, which could prevent the variant being imported into the UK, for political reasons.

Experts have called for India to immediately be added to the red list of countries from which the UK has banned travellers, with returning British and Irish nationals required to quarantine in a hotel for ten days.

Paul Hunter, professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia, said: ‘Looking at the current state of the epidemic in India, and concerns about the variant, I struggle to see any public health reason why India isn’t already on the red list. People can up make their own minds on whether this has anything to do with the Prime Minister’s trip.’

Ravindra Gupta, a University of Cambridge professor and government adviser on new threats in the pandemic, said: ‘This new variant should cause a similar level of concern to the South African one.

‘It has two mutations which could help it escape vaccines and immunity in people who have had coronavirus, and another which could make it more transmissible, although there is no evidence that is happening yet.’

He added: ‘There is a lot of travel between the UK and India, and this variant appears to have been imported, so we need to do something about that.

‘India should be on the red list for travel and should not be kept off for any political reasons.

‘We need to be aware that this is a vulnerable time for new variants.’

The 73 cases of the Indian variant confirmed in England, and the four in Scotland, are understood to be widely dispersed, with no indication of clusters or outbreaks.

Official sources say many cases are linked to international travel.

Scientists are testing the variant to see if it can partially evade the protection from vaccines, and officials say there is no evidence for this yet, or for the variant being more transmissible.

The mutant Indian coronavirus has become a ‘variant under investigation’ along with six others, although it falls short of being a ‘variant of concern’ like the South African one.

Downing Street said Mr Johnson’s India trip is still going ahead, but instead of spending four days in the country as previously planned, most of his meetings will now take place on Monday, April 26.

All elements will be ‘Covid-secure’, with safety a priority, it said.

Asked why India has not been put on the red list despite the soaring number of cases, a No 10 spokesman said: ‘We won’t hesitate to introduce tougher restrictions and add countries if we think it is necessary.’

Professor Anthony Costello, director of the University College London Institute for Global Health and former director of maternal, child and adolescent health at the World Health Organisation, tweeted: ‘This is a disaster. We have more than 50 flights from India daily. 77 cases of a really nasty India variant that affects younger people already here?

‘Surge testing without isolation support. Contacts not being tested. This is a total shambles. We have learnt nothing after a year.’

‘People can make up their own minds’