Singapore’s Health Ministry on Tuesday stated that there is no truth in reference of reports in a section of Indian media about the presence of a new variant of coronavirus in the country saying that there is no “Singapore variant”.
A statement by Singapore’s Ministry of Health (MOH) referred to media reports in a section of media claiming remarks of Delhi Chief Minister, Arvind Kejriwal. According to the Indian media report, the strain that is prevalent in many of the Covid-19 cases in the recent weeks is the B.1.617.2 variant which is the variant that was first originated in India.
“There is no truth whatsoever in the assertions found within the reports. There is no “Singapore variant”. The strain that is prevalent in many of the Covid-19 cases in recent weeks is the B.1.617.2 variant, which originated in India. Phylogenetic testing has shown this B.1.617.2 variant to be associated with several clusters in Singapore,” the statement said.
There is no truth in the assertion that there is a new COVID strain in Singapore. Phylogenetic testing has shown that the B.1.617.2 variant is the prevalent strain in many of the COVID cases, including in children, in recent weeks in Singapore.https://t.co/uz0mNPNxlE https://t.co/Vyj7gyyzvJ
— Singapore in India (@SGinIndia) May 18, 2021
Kejriwal had appealed the Centre to immediately suspend all flights from Singapore because of an alleged new strain, which is suspected to have adverse effect on children. He urged that the new strain in Singapore could lead to the third wave of Covid-19 in India.
In a tweet today, Kejriwal said, “The new Covid variant in Singapore is being said to be extremely dangerous for children, in India it may come as a third wave. My appeal to the central government: 1. Air services with Singapore to be cancelled with immediate effect, 2. Priority on vaccine options should be worked out for children too.”
Earlier, the Principal Scientific Advisor to Centre K Vijay Raghavan had on May 5 said the “third phase” of the Covid-19 is inevitable.
“A phase three is inevitable, given the higher levels of circulating virus but it is not clear on what time scale this phase three will occur. We should prepare for new waves,” the Principal Scientific Advisor had said.
