NEW DELHI (AP) – A new and potentially troublesome variant of coronavirus has been detected in India, as well as variants first detected in the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil, health officials said on Wednesday.
However, Health Ministry officials and experts have warned against associating variants with a continuing rise in new infections in India.
Cases in India had collapsed since September and life was returning to normal. But cases began to rise last month and more than 47,000 new infections have been detected in the last 24 hours, along with 275 deaths – the highest death toll in more than a month in more than four months.
The virus has been mutant throughout the pandemic. Most mutations are commonplace, but scientists have investigated which of them could make the virus easier to spread or make people sick.
The three variants first detected in South Africa, the United Kingdom and Brazil are considered the most worrying and have been designated as “worrying options”. The three variants were found in 7% of the nearly 11,000 samples that India sequenced since December 30. The most common of these was the more contagious variant that was detected in the UK last year.
The new variant found in India has two mutations in the spiny protein that the virus uses to attach to cells, said Dr. Rakesh Mishra, director of the Center for Cellular and Molecular Biology, one of 10 research institutes that sequence the virus.
He added that these genetic changes could be worrying, as they could help the virus spread more easily and get rid of the immune system, but warned against linking it to growth.
The Ministry of Health said in a statement that the variant was found in 15% -20% of the sequenced samples in the state of Maharashtra. The state, which hosts India’s financial capital, has been hit hardest by recent growth and accounts for over 60% of all active cases in India.
In the city of Nagpur in Maharashtra, infections caused by this new variant have been in those parts of the city that have so far been least affected, said Dr. Sujeet Singh, head of the National Center for Disease Control in New Delhi.
“The sensitive population group … was substantially large,” Singh added.
Meanwhile, health officials have acknowledged that they are worried about future festivals, many of which mark the appearance of spring. The Indian government has written to states to consider imposing restrictions, but many holidays have defied distance and anti-virus protocols.
This relaxation and the slow release of the vaccine are the most worrying, said Dr. Vineeta Bal of the National Institute of Immunology in India. She said that, unlike last year, the virus was spreading to richer neighborhoods, infecting families who had managed to stay sheltered in their homes earlier. Now, people are less fearful and let their guard down. Masks are worn, “but masks protect people’s beards rather than their noses,” she said.
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