SINGAPORE, April 23 — The Ministry of Health (MOH) has detected 46 cases of the new "double mutant” Covid-19 strain of the coronavirus here that originated from India. This was the figure as of Tuesday (April 20) and all of the cases were imported.

Revealing these numbers on Thursday, MOH said in a statement that the new strain has not been detected within the community.

There is also no evidence that Westlite Woodlands dormitory residents who have recently tested positive for the coronavirus are infected with this new variant, Education Minister Lawrence Wong said. He was speaking as co-chair of the multi-ministry task force, which held a briefing for the media on Thursday.

In total, MOH said that it has detected seven Covid-19 cases here that have the B117 variant — also known as the United Kingdom variant — and one case of the B1351 variant, known as the South African variant.

Among these eight people, three of them were household contacts. Apart from these, there has not been any further spread within the wider community.

The one patient who has the South African variant works in the marine industry and was exposed to potentially infectious sources from ships visiting Singapore.

All of his close contacts, including dormitory and workplace contacts, have been placed on quarantine.

MOH said that "all necessary public health actions have been taken promptly to isolate and ring-fence these cases”.

As for imported cases, aside from the 46 cases who have the Indian variant, the ministry said that it has detected: