India has successfully cultured the new coronavirus strain, which originated in the UK, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said on Saturday.

In a tweet, the ICMR claimed that no other country has yet reported successful isolation and culture of the UK-variant of SARS-CoV-2. Culturing is the process by which cells are grown under controlled conditions, generally outside their natural environment.

"UK-variant of the virus, with all signature changes, is now successfully isolated and cultured at the National Institute of Virology (NIV) from the clinical specimens collected from UK-returnees," the ICMR said adding that vero cell lines were used in the process.