E-Paper
First two Delta Plus cases confirmed in Uttar Pradesh after genome sequencing, one dead
While a 23-year-old medical student from Gorakhpur recovered in May, a 66-year-old man from Deoria succumbed the same month
Genome sequencing has confirmed the first two cases of the Delta Plus variant of Covid-19 in Uttar Pradesh. One of them is a medical student from Gorakhpur who recovered in May, while the other patient, a resident of Deoria, died the same month. Both are from eastern Uttar Pradesh.
“These were old Covid cases. Their samples were sent for genome sequencing, and they tested positive for the Delta Plus variant of Covid,” said additional chief secretary (medical health) Amit Mohan Prasad at a press conference here on Wednesday.
The 23-year-old doctor of BRD Medical College in Gorakhpur had tested positive on May 23 and her sample was sent for genome sequencing, which tested positive.
The medical student recovered in home isolation. All her contacts tested negative for Covid. The health department took samples of all the people who came in contact with her in the past over two weeks.
“Till now, the samples of two patients have been confirmed for the Delta Plus variant,” said Dr Ganesh Kumar, principal of the Baba Raghav Das (BRD) Medical College in Gorakhpur.
The 66-year-old man from Deoria had fallen ill in the first week of May. He tested positive and was admitted on May 7. During this period, only his sample was sent for genome sequencing which tested positive for the Delta Plus variant.
The man died on May 29 at BRD Medical College where he was admitted, said a senior health official.
“There were six family members in close contact with the man. They tested negative for Covid,” said the health official. Over 100 people on the contact list of these two patients were screened. The close contacts are still being monitored and their health update is being taken by the health department
The samples were sent to the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology in New Delhi.
Among the samples sent to Delhi from Gorakhpur, 27 tested positive for the Delta variant and two for Delta Plus.
In Uttar Pradesh, the genome sequencing facility has recently started at King George’s Medical University and samples are now being sent to KGMU.
UP’s first case of Kappa variant reported from Gorakhpur
The first case of the Kappa variant of the coronavirus in Uttar Pradesh has been reported from Gorakhpur following genome sequencing.
The B.1.617.1 variant of the coronavirus that causes Covid-19 has been designated as Kappa while the B1.617.2 variant has been named Delta. Kappa is a variant that is linked to the B.1.617 lineage of mutations that has also given rise to the Delta variant.
Dr Amresh Singh of the microbiology department at the Baba Raghav Das (BRD) Medical College Gorakhpur said, “We have received results of 30 samples till now. Of the 30 samples, 27 tested for Delta, two for Delta Plus and one for the Kappa variant of Covid.”
In all, 72 samples were sent from Gorakhpur to New Delhi for genome sequencing. The results of the remaining 42 are awaited.
As it evolved, the B.1.617 branched out into new lineages. One of those, B.1.617.2 is called Delta and is the most prevalent variant at present in India. The other lineage, B.1.617.1, is called Kappa and it was designated as a VoI by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in April this year.
According to WHO, a VoI is one that “has been identified to cause community transmission/multiple Covid-19 cases/clusters, or has been detected in multiple countries”.
B.1.617 has been found to carry more than a dozen mutations of which two stand out: E484Q and L452R, which is why this variant has also been called the “double mutant”.
Kappa was first detected in India and more than 3,500 of the close to 30,000 cumulative samples submitted by the country to the GISAID initiative, which maintains a global database of novel coronavirus genomes, are of this variant. In the last 60 days, the Kappa variant has made up 3 per cent of all samples submitted by India. India, in fact, leads the GISAID table for Kappa submissions and is followed by the UK, US, Canada, etc.
GISAID is a global science initiative and primary source established in 2008 that provides open-access to genomic data of influenza viruses and the coronavirus responsible for the Covid-19 pandemic.
