Telangana has been put on high alert after at least 279 passengers who had returned from the UK are untraceable.
According to Telangana Police, 184 returnees had given wrong phone numbers and addresses. Ninety-two untraceable returnees are from the neighbouring states of Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Karnataka.
Fifty-nine new COVID-19 cases have taken the number of infections among travelers back from the UK, to 119.
The samples of returnees have been sent to the labs for sequencing. By Monday, it will be clear whether the passengers are carrying the new COVID strain, which is more transmissible variant and currently wreaking havoc in the UK.
According to Director of Public Health, G Srinivasa Rao, the Telangana government is following a policy of 'tracing, testing, and treating' to prevent the spread of COVID-19, in the wake of a new variant of coronavirus.
He added 1,216 people have arrived in Telangana from the UK since December 9 and a total of 937 have been identified and tested for COVID-19.
People with a travel history to the UK have been requested to report to their health department so that tests can be conducted at their home.?
All international passenger flights connecting the UK have been suspended from Wednesday till December 31, or till further orders, in the wake of the emergence of a mutated strain of the virus there.