The Minister of Health said that the English variant was detected in two patients who tested positive on their return to the country while nine others were infected with the South African variant. In addition, the majority of local patients whose samples have been sequenced are contaminated with a variant of interest.
On January 9 of this year, 20 samples of samples taken from passengers returning to Mauritius were sent to England for sequencing. Of these, three were carriers of the South African variant, 14 infected with a variant that “does not change the way the virus works” and three samples could not be analyzed.
Another batch of 20 samples was sent to the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) in South Africa. These were 17 imported cases and 3 local cases. Three cases of the South African variant and one case of the English variant were detected.
The third batch, which consisted of 40 samples consisting of seven imported cases and 33 local cases, was sent to South Africa on March 13. It was in this batch that the B 1.1.318 variant, classified as variant of interest, was detected in local patients. This variant is present in 32 countries. This batch also revealed a case of a South African variant and a case of an English variant in quarantined passengers.