E-Paper
Double mutant Covid strain found in Nagpur, but not linked with surge: Centre
The surge can be attributed to the pool of susceptible population in any particular area who are vulnerable to any Covid-19 virus strain, National Centre for Disease Control's director Dr Sujeet Kumar Singh said.
The Union health ministry on Wednesday clarified that the double mutant strain of the Covid-19 virus is not being directly linked to the surge in the number of infections. The surge can be attributed to the pool of susceptible population in any particular area, who are not adhering to Covid-19 appropriate norms. Such a population will be vulnerable to any strain, including the one seen in 2020, National Centre for Disease Control's director Dr Sujeet Kumar Singh said.
The Union health ministry of Wednesday published a detailed report on the genome sequencing work that the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Consortium on genomics did in the past few months and said 771 variants of concerns (VOCs) have been detected in a total of 10,787 positive samples shared by states and UTs. These included the UK variant, the South African variant and the Brazil variant.
Apart from these three mutants, the Centre also mentioned a double mutant variant, which is new. "Such mutations confer immune escape and increased infectivity," it said.
According to government data, the double mutant strain has also been found in two samples from Punjab, one sample from Ladakh and Jammu each, three samples from Gujarat and one sample from Odisha.
"...double mutant is evolving. We have seen this double mutant E484Q and L452R. This is the double mutant which has been observed in 206 samples in Maharashtra and then in a varied number in Delhi, nine samples, and so on," Dr Singh said.
"Now when we link we have to see from where the samples have been picked. This is very very relevant. In Nagpur, yes, we have found a substantial number of this, around 20 per cent. But correlating the surge with this 20 per cent is not possible," he added.
Going further into the details of the strain found in Nagpur, Dr Singh said, "Eight wards of Nagpur saw a surge. These eight wards are those which were least affected in the earlier surge. So the pool of susceptible population in those eight wards was comparatively large."
