The first cases of the Covid-19 variant first identified in India have been detected in Leicester.Leicester’s Director of Public Health, Professor Ivan Browne, says that all three cases detected in Leicester are linked to travel from India prior to the country being added to the Government’s red list last Friday (23 April).The India variant was identified after the sequencing process, carried out on the tests taken by returning travellers who tested positive for Covid-19.Public Health England notified us on Sunday that it had identified three cases of the variant known as VUI-21-APR in Leicester. PHE had already been in touch with the people concerned and some of their contacts. Since then we have been working closely with PHE to ensure that all close contacts of those affected are identified and advised to self-isolate for 10 days.
