“New Scientist,” a credible science and technology journal, says it cites “Nextstrain,” a pathogen monitoring project, that the UK coronavirus variant or B.1.1.7 is responsible for the increase in COVID- 19 in Asia, causing 40% of cases. The South African variant or coronavirus lineage B.1.351 is as follows, responsible for 16% of cases.
However, India, which now records the most daily cases, argues that there is no evidence to suggest this, even if it has a self-produced coronavirus mutant that is now a cause for concern.
On March 24, the Union government confirmed that the double mutant coronavirus or B.1.617 lineage was present largely in Maharashtra and in small numbers in six more states. But, according to the latest observation from the health ministry, the mutant infection has spread to three more states. Therefore, the mutant is present in many states affected by the second wave, including Maharashtra, Delhi, West Bengal, Gujarat, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh, and all states are witnessing an upward trend.
The “New Scientist” report questions the workings of India’s “Indian SARS-CoV-2 consortium on genomics (INSACOG)” initiative established in December 2020 to find out different genomic sequences that could be more infectious and more deadly than the original coronavirus strain. course. It also raises possibilities as if the new mutant strains were behind a rapid rise in the COVID wave in different states.
Take Maharashtra for example.
Between January and March this year, Maharashtra recorded a 15-20% increase in the count of double mutants in the coronavirus. On April 10, the National Institute of Virology shared a report of a limited genome sequencing analysis of positive samples that said the double mutant coronavirus was responsible for 61% of cases in Maharashtra. Up to 220 of the 361 samples tested positive for the double mutant coronavirus. 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, joined to form a third strain. The E484Q strain is from India and the L452R is a California strain. It is a self-produced strain that is now found in many other countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom. 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 the fact that India has not yet tested large-scale coronavirus samples, even though its mutant viruses are now behind the rapid spread of many countries.
In 128 days, India has been able to sequence only the genome around 14,000 test samples for coronavirus variants, even though the UK variant is now the most important COVID strain in 40% of cases in Asia. According to Newstrain’s analysis or in many countries, including the United Kingdom where it causes 98% of new cases or in the United States with 25-30% of new cases due to the UK variant or the South African variant which is resistant to many vaccines or Brazilian variant that can re-infect people.
India, on average, tests only 109 positive samples a day to analyze coronavirus genome sequences to find out other deadly mutants in the virus when the fact is that genome sequencing is the best way to find which variant of the virus circulates the most. .
The Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID) is a data exchange platform for genome sequencing on influenza viruses and COVID-19 and India and many other countries provide genome sequencing data to this website. free access. According to the GISAID database, the United Kingdom has so far provided 3.67 lakh genomes, followed by the United States with 2.83 lakh genomes, Germany with more than 54,000 genomes and Denmark with more than 50,000 genomes, but India, the second most affected nation, is here. To date, the country has provided only 7,842 genome sequences.
Yes, we cannot say whether coronavirus mutants are largely behind the recent increase, but at the same time, we cannot deny the fact that B.1.617 has emerged as the main cause of the increase in COVID in Maharashtra in the studies conducted so far.
What is important here is the fact that we have not yet tested large-scale genomic sequencing to know its spread, even if we identified this variant of the coronavirus on December 7 last year. The mutant is already about four months old according to its detection date. Similarly, the UK variant has been found in 80% of the tested samples from the Punjab that have been taken for genome sequencing and has been extended 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 in a larger population base, but the only way out of this is to do more testing. Because not doing so can be a fatal mistake if we later find that the mutant virus is resistant to the vaccine, as has happened with the South African variant that is resistant to Covishield, India’s leading COVID vaccine.
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