India became the first country in the world to successfully isolate and culture the new, mutated strain of the novel coronavirus.
“UK-variant of the virus, with all signature changes, is now successfully isolated and cultured at the National Institute of Virology (NIV) from the clinical specimens collected from UK-returnees,” ICMR said on microblogging site Twitter.
According to ICMR, no other country has managed to successfully isolate and culture the UK variant.