MUMBAI, Dec. 25 (Xinhua) -- Mumbai's civic authority is monitoring some 1,500 passengers who returned from Britain since Nov. 25 for a more contiguous strain of COVID-19.

Health workers keep vigil as passengers exit the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport upon their arrival from London in Mumbai on December 22, 2020. (Photo: AFP)

A list of passengers has been shared with the civic officials across the city's 24 wards, civic ward officials said.

Ward officials have been told to prescribe reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests to these passengers if required, and the positive samples will be sent to the National Institute of Virology at Pune for genome sequencing to identify the new strain.

So far, none was found to be COVID-19 symptomatic during the screening at the airport among the European and West Asia passengers, who have been quarantined in various hotels across the city.

As per the latest update, Mumbai has 8,011 active cases of COVID-19 with 11,045 deaths with a recovery rate of 93 percent and patient doubling rate of 366 days.

India, the second worst affected country by COVID-19 globally after the United States, currently has 281,919 active cases with 147,092 deaths so far.