Singapore confirms one case with UK virus strain

[SINGAPORE] One imported patient in Singapore has been confirmed to be infected by a potentially more contagious strain of the Covid-19 virus that is circulating in the United Kingdom.

The Ministry of Health (MOH) said on Wednesday (Dec 23) that a total of 31 imported cases from Europe, who arrived in Singapore between Nov 17 and Dec 17, were confirmed to have Covid-19 infection in December.

Among them, 12 were not infected with the possibly more contagious Covid-19 strain, dubbed B117, but one patient was.

Five of the samples cannot be sequenced due to their low viral load, and MOH is pending confirmatory results for another 11 cases who are preliminarily positive for the B117 strain. Two cases have not been tested so far.

Even so, MOH said that there is currently no evidence that the B117 strain is circulating in the community in Singapore."All the cases had been placed on 14-day stay-home notices (SHN) at dedicated facilities or isolated upon arrival in Singapore, and their close contacts had been quarantined earlier," said the ministry.

The case infected with the more contagious Covid-19 virus is a 17-year-old Singaporean girl who had been studying in the UK from August.

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She returned to Singapore on Dec 6 and served SHN at a dedicated SHN facility on arrival here.

The teen developed a fever the next day, and was confirmed to have Covid-19 infection on Dec 8. All her close contacts had been quarantined and had tested negative for Covid-19 infection at the end of their quarantine period. "As she had been isolated upon arrival in Singapore, we were able to ringfence this case so that there was no further transmission arising from her," said MOH.

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