Indian Covid variant must be ‘urgently analysed’ as calls mount for country to be added to travel ‘red list’

BRITAIN must urgently analyse the Indian Covid variant, a leading epidemiologist has warned, as calls mount for the country to be added to the Government’s “red list”.

Dr Mike Tildesley said the strain — with 77 confirmed UK cases — could be more transmissable and resistant to vaccines.

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Environment Secretary George Eustice said the decision not to impose travel restrictions was “under regular review”.

Mr Eustice added: “I’m told that there is no evidence at the moment that this particular variant is able to get around the vaccine, for instance, or indeed that it is necessarily more contagious than the others.”

Boris Johnson is due to travel to India in the last week of April.

The trip has already been cut short as infections in the country continue to climb.

Mr Eustice confirmed that if scientists recommended a ban on travel to and from India, the Government would act.

Quizzed on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, the Environment Secretary said: “There are quite a lot of robust tests and checks for anybody coming into the country.

“But we keep this under regular review. We take the advice of the scientific experts on this.

“If the advice is we should change that and move to the red list we would.”