ICMR said no country reported isolation and culture of British coronavirus strain (representation)
New Delhi:
India has successfully cultured the new coronavirus strain, which originated in the UK, the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) said on Saturday.
In a tweet, the ICMR claims that no country has yet reported successful isolation and culture of the British variant of SARS-CoV-2.
Culture is the process by which cells are grown under controlled conditions, usually outside their natural environment.
“The UK variant of the virus, with all signature changes, is now being successfully isolated and cultured at the National Institute of Virology (NIV) from the clinical specimens collected by return in the UK,” the ICMR said.
India successfully cultivates the new virus strain on the horizon (UK variant of SARS-CoV-2). # ICMRFIGHTSCOVID19# IndiaFightsCOVID19#CoronaUpdatesInIndia# COVID-19# Unite2FightCorona@MoHFW_INDIA@PIB_India@DrHVoffice@drharshvardhan@AshwiniKChoubey@icmr_nivpic.twitter.com/vaCMQMSHOJ
– ICMR (@ICMRDELHI) 2 January 2021
The research institute said that vero cell lines were used by the scientists of ICMR-NIV to cultivate the British variant of the virus.
The UK recently announced that the newly identified strain of the virus found in their population was up to 70 per cent more contagious.
A total of 29 people have so far tested positive for the new UK variant of SARS-CoV-2 in India, the Ministry of Health said on Friday.
(Except for the headline, this story was not processed by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)