LONDON, April 19 (Xinhua) -- Travel from India to Britain is being banned for non-British and Irish citizens from 4:00 a.m. BST (0300 GMT) on Friday after the country was added to Britain's travel "red list", British Health Secretary Matt Hancock said Monday.
According to the rules, British or Irish passport holders, or people with British residence rights, will be allowed in but must quarantine in a government-approved hotel for 10 days.
Hancock told lawmakers in the British parliament that the decision came after the detection of 103 cases in Britain of a new COVID-19 variant which first emerged in India.
"We've been analyzing samples from these cases to see if this variant has any concerning characteristics -- like greater transmissibility or resistance to treatments and vaccines -- meaning it has to be treated as a variant of concern," he said.
"After studying the data and on a precautionary basis, we've made the difficult but vital decision to add India to the red list."
It is understood that the coronavirus variant B.1.617, which has a "double mutation", may be more infectious and the current vaccines may be less effective against it.
Earlier Monday, Downing Street confirmed that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's trip to India next week has been canceled.
"In the light of the current coronavirus situation, Prime Minister Boris Johnson will not be able to travel to India next week," the British and Indian governments said in a joint statement.
Originally, Johnson's India trip was scheduled to take place on April 26, the BBC said.
The trip has already been rescheduled once. It was originally meant to take place in January but was canceled due to Britain's national lockdown, according to the BBC.
India is currently reeling under the second COVID-19 wave, with more than 200,000 new cases being registered each day recently and the national tally feared to cross the 15-million mark early next week.
Nearly 33 million people in Britain have been given the first jab of the coronavirus vaccine, according to the latest official figures.
Experts have warned that despite progress in vaccine rollout, Britain is "still not out of the woods" amid concerns over new variants, particularly those first emerged in South Africa, Brazil and India, and the third wave of pandemic on the European continent.
To bring life back to normal, countries such as Britain, China, Russia, the United States as well as the European Union have been racing against time to roll out coronavirus vaccines. Enditem