“New Scientist”, a credible science and technology journal, says, citing “Nextstrain”, a pathogen monitoring project, that the UK variant of coronavirus or B.1.1.7 is responsible for the growth of COVID-19 in Asia, causing 40% of cases. The South African variant or line B.1.351 of coronavirus is the next line, responsible for 16% of cases.
However, India, which records most cases on a daily basis, says there is no evidence to suggest this, even though it has a homemade coronavirus mutant that is now a cause for concern.
On March 24, the Union government confirmed that the double mutant coronavirus or line B.1.617 was present in Maharashtra and in a small number in six other states. But according to the latest observation of the Ministry of Health, the mutant infection has spread to three other states. So the mutant is present in many states hard hit by the second wave, including Maharashtra, Delhi, West Bengal, Gujarat, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh and each state is witnessing a growth trend.
The New Scientist report questions the operation of India’s SARS-CoV-2 Indian Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) set up in December 2020 to find out different genomic sequences that could be more infectious and deadly than the original coronavirus strain. . year. It also increases the chances, such as if the new mutant strains are behind the rapid rise of the COVID wave in different states.
Take Maharashtra for example.
Between January and March this year, Maharashtra saw a 15-20% increase in the number of double coronavirus mutants. On April 10, the National Institute of Virology released a report of a limited analysis of genome sequencing of positive samples, which stated that double mutant coronavirus is responsible behind 61% of cases in Maharashtra. Up to 220 of 361 samples tested positive for double mutant coronavirus. Mumbai has not yet reported this strain, but it could be the next important factor in the second wave of coronavirus if we look at the samples on a larger scale.
Line B.1.617 evolved when two mutant strains, E484Q and L452R, merged to form a third strain. The E484Q strain is from India, and the L452R is a California strain. It is a house strain now found in many other countries, including the US and the UK. The fact that the Indian strain is now found in many other countries only indicates that the double mutant is spreading.
What may be the glaring mistake here is that India has not yet tested large-scale coronavirus samples, even though its mutant viruses are now behind the rapid scale of growth in many countries.
In 128 days, India managed to genome only the sequence of around 14,000 test samples for coronavirus variants, even though the UK variant is now the main COVID strain behind 40% of cases in Asia. According to the Newstrain analysis or in many countries, including the United Kingdom, where it causes 98% of new cases or in the US, with 25-30% new cases due to the UK variant or the South African variant, which is resistant to many vaccines or The Brazilian version that can reinfect people.
India, on average, tests only 109 positive samples a day to analyze coronavirus genome sequences to find out other deadly mutants of the virus when the truth is that genome sequencing is the best way to find out which virus variant is circulating the most.
The Global Influenza Data Sharing Initiative (GISAID) is a data sharing platform for genome sequences on influenza viruses and COVID-19, and India and many other countries provide genome sequencing data on this site with free access. According to the GISAID database, the United Kingdom has so far provided 3.67 genomic lakom, followed by the US with 2.83 genomic lakomas, Germany with over 54,000 genomes and Denmark with over 50,000 genomes, but India has second most affected nation, is delayed here. To date, the country has provided only 7,842 genome sequences.
Yes, we cannot say whether coronavirus mutants are largely behind recent growth, but at the same time, we cannot deny that B.1.617 has emerged as the leading cause of COVID growth in Maharashtra in studies to date.
What is important here is that we have not yet tested its genomic sequencing on a large scale to know its spread even though we identified this variant of coronavirus on December 7 last year. The mutant is already about four months old, according to its detection date. Similarly, the British variant was found in 80% of the tested samples in Punjab that were taken for genome sequencing and spread to about 19 states in the country.
It can be argued that a very small number of positive test samples have been sequenced by the genome and the results cannot be reflected for a larger population base, but the only way out of this is to do more tests. Failure to do so can be a fatal mistake if we later find out that the mutant virus is resistant to vaccines, as was the case with the South African version, which is resistant to Covishield, India’s leading COVID vaccine.
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