Twenty-two situations of the new Delta Plus variant of the Covid-19 virus have been discovered in Maharashtra, Kerala and Madhya Pradesh. Sixteen of these situations have been discovered in Ratnagiri and Jalgaon districts of Maharashtra, Union wellness secretary Rajesh Bhushan mentioned at a wellness ministry briefing on Tuesday.
Delta Plus remains a ‘variant of interest’ and has not however turn into a ‘variant of concern’, Bhushan mentioned. The Delta Plus variant has been discovered in nine more nations at present: United States, United Kingdom, Portugal, Switzerland, Japan, Poland, Nepal, China and Russia. The Delta variant is a ‘variant of concern’ and has spread to 80 nations.
The wellness ministry has advised the Maharashtra, Kerala and Madhya Pradesh governments to take up instant containment measures, enhanced testing, tracking and vaccination in districts and clusters exactly where the Delta Plus variant has been discovered. They have been asked to send sufficient samples of positive patients to designated laboratories of INSACOG so that the clinical epidemiological correlations can be made, Bhushan mentioned.
This was based on the current findings of INSACOG. This variant has been discovered in genome sequenced samples from Ratnagiri and Jalgaon districts of Maharashtra, Palakkad and Pathanamthitta districts of Kerala, and in Madhya Pradesh’s Bhopal and Shivpuri districts. INSACOG has till date carried out sequencing of 45,000 samples.
INSACOG is a consortium of 28 laboratories of ministry of wellness & family welfare, division of biotechnology, Indian Council of Medical Research, and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research for complete genome sequencing in the context of Covid-19 pandemic. Apart from genome sequencing, INSACOG also has to give timely inputs on proper public wellness response measures to be adopted by states and union territories.
According to INSACOG, the Delta Plus variant is a presently a ‘variant of concern’, which indicates it could have elevated transmissibility, is stronger in binding to receptors of lung cells and result in a prospective reduction in monoclonal antibody response.