Four more people who have tested positive for Covid-19 in India have been found to be infected with the new mutated strain of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19.

With this, the number of people infected with the UK variant of the virus in India has reached 29.

As of Thursday, the number of such cases in India was 25. The Union health ministry had said these cases included the 20 people who were found positive with the mutated strain on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Of the 29 cases of the mutated strain, 10 have been detected at NIMHANS Bengaluru, eight at NCDC New Delhi, five at National Institute of Virology (NIV) Pune, three at CCMB Hyderabad, two at Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB) New Delhi, and one case at NIBMG Kalyani.

The situation is under careful watch and regular advice is being provided to the states for enhanced surveillance, containment, testing and dispatch of samples to INSACOG labs," the Union health ministry had said on Tuesday.

So far, the presence of the new UK variant has already been reported by Denmark, the Netherlands, Australia, Italy, Sweden, France, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Canada, Japan, Lebanon and Singapore.