Mumbai: As many as 16 returnees from the United Kingdom (UK) have tested positive in RT PCR tests conducted on their arrival in Maharashtra, health officials said here on Saturday. The new strain of COVID is reportedly found from their test samples.

The State health authorities has asked all the passengers arriving from the UK and other European nations to undergo RT-PCR tests ever since the detection of a new strain of the virus there. So far 1,122 passengers are screened.

Of these, 16 were tested positive for the infection including, four from Nagpur, three each from Mumbai and Thane, two from Pune and one each from Ahmednagar, Nanded, Raigad and Aurangabad.

"The samples of positive patients will be sent to the National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune for genomic sequencing," said a state health official.

On the other side, Maharashtra witnessed 2,854 new cases taking up the total number of cases in state from 19,13,382 to 19,16,236.

Meanwhile, with 60 new fatalities, the death toll in the state rose from 49,129 to 49,189. The recovery rate in the state stands at 94.04 per cent.