ICMR said no country reported isolation and culture of coronavirus strain from UK (representative)
New Delhi:
India has successfully cultivated the new coronavirus strain, which originated in the UK, the Indian Medical Research Council (ICMR) said on Saturday.
In a tweet, ICMR claimed that no country has yet reported the successful isolation and culture of the British version of SARS-CoV-2.
Culture is the process by which cells are grown under controlled conditions, generally outside their natural environment.
“The British version of the virus, with all the signature changes, is now successfully isolated and cultured at the National Institute of Virology (NIV) from clinical specimens collected from returnees from the UK,” ICMR said.
India is successfully cultivating the new viral strain on the horizon (the British version of SARS-CoV-2). # ICMRFIGHTSCOVID19# IndiaFightCOVID19#CoronaUpdatesInIndia# COVID-19# Unite2FightCorona@MoHFW_INDIA@PIB_India@DrHVoffice@drharshvardhan@AshwiniKChoubeyicmr_nivpic.twitter.com/vaCMQMSHOJ
– ICMR (@ICMRDELHI) January 2, 2021
The research body said that vero cell lines were used by scientists at ICMR-NIV to grow the British version of the virus.
The UK had recently announced that the newly identified strain of the virus found in their population was up to 70% more infectious.
A total of 29 people have tested positive for the new British variant of SARS-CoV-2 in India so far, the Union Ministry of Health said on Friday.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by NDTV staff and is published in a syndicated stream.)