Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Tuesday said there might be a slight extension of temporary suspension of passenger flights between India and the United Kingdom, where a mutated variant of the coronavirus has been detected.

Last week, the Civil Aviation Ministry had suspended all flights between the UK and India from December 23 to December 31 over the new variant of the virus.

“I foresee a slight extension of temporary suspension of India-UK flights,” the minister said at a press conference.

“In the next day or two, we will find out if any additional steps need to be taken, or when we can start easing the current temporary suspension,” he added.

Meanwhile, six persons who had returned from the country to India have tested positive for the mutated variant of the coronavirus the Union Health Ministry said on Tuesday.

It said the UK variant genome of SARS-CoV-2 was detected in three samples in the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences Hospital (NIMHANS) Bengaluru, two in the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) in Hyderabad and one in the National Institute of Virology (NIV) Pune.

“All these persons have been kept in single room isolation at designated health care facilities by respective state governments and their close contacts have also been put under quarantine,” the ministry said.

The presence of the new UK variant has already been reported by Denmark, the Netherlands, Australia, Italy, Sweden, France, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Canada, Japan, Lebanon, Pakistan and Singapore, so far.