‘New Scientist’, a credible science and technology magazine, says ‘Nextstrain’, a pathogen detection project, that the British coronavirus variant or B.1.1.7 is responsible for the COVID-19 boom in Asia, which accounts for 40% of causing the cases. The South African variant or correspondence B.1.351 is the following, which is responsible for 16% of the cases.
But India, which now registers most cases daily, maintains that there is no evidence to suggest this, even though it has a homemade coronavirus mutant that is now of concern.
On March 24, the Union government confirmed that the coronavirus dual mutant or B.1.617 lineage occurs mainly in Maharashtra and in small numbers in six other states. But according to the latest Ministry of Health observation, the mutant infection has spread to three more states. The mutant is therefore present in many countries hard hit by the second wave, including Maharashtra, Delhi, West Bengal, Gujarat, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh, and each state is seeing an upward trend.
The ‘New Scientist’ report questions the operation of India’s initiative ‘The Indian SARS-CoV-2 Consortium on Genomics (INSACOG)’ set up in December 2020 to find different genomic sequences that could be more contagious and deadly original coronavirus strain last year. It also offers possibilities such as when the new mutant strains are behind a rapid increase in COVID wave in different conditions.
Take Maharashtra, for example.
Between January and March this year, Maharashtra had a 15-20% increase in the coronavirus count with double mutations. On April 10, the National Institute of Virology shared a report of a limited genome-sequence analysis of positive samples that says the double-mutated coronavirus is responsible for 61% of cases in Maharashtra. About 220 of 361 samples are positive for coronavirus with double mutations. Mumbai has not yet reported this strain, but it could be the next big factor in the second wave of coronavirus if we analyze the samples on a larger scale.
The B.1.617 lineage evolved when two mutated strains, E484Q and L452R, came together to form a third strain. The E484Q strain is from India and L452R is a California strain. It is a homemade strain that is now found in many other countries, including the US and the UK. The fact that the Indian tribe is now found in many other countries only indicates that the double mutant is spreading.
What may be the striking error here is the fact that India has not yet tested coronavirus samples on a large scale, even though the mutant viruses are now behind the rapid rise in many countries.
In 128 days, India could only number about 14,000 test samples for coronavirus variants, even though the British variant is now the largest 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 British variant or the South African variant being resistant is against many vaccines or the Brazilian variant that can infect humans again.
India tests an average of only 109 positive samples per day to analyze the coronavirus genome sequence to find out other lethal mutants of the virus, while the genome sequence is the best way to find out which variant of the virus circulates more. .
The Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID) is a data sharing platform for genome sequences on influenza and COVID-19 viruses and India and many other countries provide genome sequences on this website with free access. According to the GISAID database, the UK has so far supplied 3.67 lakh genomes, followed by the US with 2.83 lakh genomes, Germany with more than 54,000 genomes and Denmark with more than 50,000 genomes, but India, the second hardest hit country, there is a backlog here. So far, the country has provided only 7842 genomic sequences.
Yes, we can not say whether the coronavirus mutants are largely behind the recent surge, but at the same time we can also not deny that B.1.617 is the biggest cause of COVID surge in Maharashtra in the studies done so far. .
What is important here is the fact that we have not yet tested its genomic sequencing on a large scale to know its distribution, even though we identified this coronavirus variant on December 7 last year. The mutant is already about four months old at the time of detection. Similarly, the British variant was found in 80% of the Punjab test samples taken for genome sequencing, and it spread to about 19 states in the country.
It can be argued that a very small number of positive test samples are genome sequences and that the results cannot be reflected for a larger population base, but the only way out of this is to do more tests. Because it can not be a fatal mistake if we later find that the mutant virus is vaccine resistant, as with the South African variant that is resistant to Covishield, the major COVID vaccine in India.
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