SINGAPORE said Tuesday the “double mutant” coronavirus variant first detected in India has been found among locally transmitted cases in the city state.

The B.1.617 variant is widely blamed for India’s second wave of infections that has seen total cases surge above 20 million. The World Health Organization classified it as a variant of interest last week.

As of Monday, Singapore has detected 10 local cases of the variant from India. Seven of these infections are in three active clusters, the country’s COVID task force said in a press release.

“All necessary public health actions have been taken promptly to isolate and ring fence all cases,” the Ministry of Health said.

Meanwhile, India’s foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, who is presently in London, Britain, for the Group of Seven (G7) foreign and development ministers’ meeting, said yesterday that he has possibly been exposed to COVID-19 cases and will conduct his engagements virtually.

“Was made aware yesterday evening of exposure to possible COVID-19 positive cases. As a measure of abundant caution and also out of consideration for others, I decided to conduct my engagements in the virtual mode. That will be the case with the G7 meeting today as well,” Jaishankar wrote on social media.

The Indian delegation was self-isolating after two delegation members tested positive.

Britain holds the rotating presidency of the G7 group, which also includes the United States, France, Germany, Canada, Japan and Italy.

India has been invited to the meeting as a guest country.

India has been witnessing the growing cases of COVID-19 as the total tally reached 20,665,148 yesterday with 382,315 new cases registered during the past 24 hours.(SD-Xinhua)