Eighteen states, including Maharashtra, Kerala and Telangana are under the scanner of the central agency for disease surveillance and prevention as these regions have added close to 200 cases of Covid-19 strain from the UK, South Africa and Brazilian variants of SARS-CoV-2.

The National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has asked these states to keep an eye out for cases with variants arriving here from other countries as the tally of people infected from such strains has reached 194 in the country, as per the latest figures shared by the Union Health Ministry.