Guidelines to prevent spread of new Covid variant soon: Sudhakar

Bengaluru: Karnataka health department will come up with guidelines to deal with new variant of coronavirus after discussing with the home ministry.

Speaking to the media on Saturday, Dr K. Sudhakar, Health Minister, said "As we all know that our Chief Minister Yediyurappa is wants to ensure Karnataka will be the best state in terms of providing healthcare to citizens, we are working on new guidelines for new year celebrations and he will conduct a meeting with the Home department regarding this soon.

On vaccine trials, Sudhakar claimed that third stage trials were being conducted in various States in the country including Karnataka. Anyone can volunteer to take the vaccine at this stage. He said that he personally appealed to many frontline warriors, especially medical students to volunteer for trials.

According to the recent reports, 1,638 out of 2,500 returnees from the United Kingdom (UK) have been tested and 14 of them have been found positive. Their swab samples have been sent to NIMHNAS for gene sequencing to find out whether it is a new strain of the virus.

"Once we get the reports it will be sent to the central government. About 38,500 people have returned from the UK. ICMR will collate reports from all States and then come up with a report.

Also I am conveying the same that all necessary precautions are being taken at airports. We have also made arrangements to test people who do not have negative reports at airports itself" Dr Sudhakar explained.