India declares new Delta Plus strain a variant of concern
At least 40 cases reported, but top virologists say there is no data to prove that it spreads more easily
BENGALURU: India has declared a new coronavirus variant to be of concern and said nearly two dozen cases had been detected in three states.
There have been at least 40 cases of Covid-19 caused by the Delta Plus variant detected in the country so far in the states of Maharashtra, Kerala and Madhya Pradesh.
Of these, 16 were in the state of Maharashtra, Federal Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan told a news conference on Tuesday.
The health ministry said Delta Plus showed increased transmissibility and advised states to increase testing, Reuters reported.
The new variant, referred to as Delta with K417N mutation, has been found in several countries, including Britain, the US, Canada, Japan, Nepal, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Switzerland and Turkey. There is so far no publicly available data on how effective the vaccines currently being used in India are against Delta Plus, and the government has said it will share this information as and when it becomes available, The Straits Times reported.
A mutation is elevated from a "variant of interest" to a "variant of concern" when it shows evidence of fulfilling at least one of several criteria, including easy transmission, more severe illness, reduced neutralisation by antibodies or reduced effectiveness of treatments and vaccines, the BBC reported.
But the BBC said questions had been raised by top virologists about India labelling it a variant of concern as there was no data yet to prove that it spreads more easily or leads to more severe illness.
"There is no data yet to support the variant of concern claim," said Dr Gagandeep Kang, a virologist.
"You need biological and clinical information in order to consider whether it is truly a variant of concern."
NOT WORRISOME YET
Dr Anurag Agarwal, director of the Delhi-based CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, one of the 28 Indian labs involved in genome sequencing, told the BBC: "We do not have any indicators as of now to show that Delta Plus should be causing any public health worry or panic. We are not seeing anything worrisome yet."
The World Health Organisation said in a statement sent to Reuters: "For the moment, this variant does not seem to be common, currently accounting for only a small fraction of the Delta sequences... Delta and other circulating variants of concern remain a higher public health risk as they have demonstrated increases in transmission."
Over the past 24 hours India reported 42,640 new infections, the lowest since March 23, and 1,167 deaths.
Infections now stand at 29.98 million, with a death toll of 389,302, Health Ministry data showed.
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