10.5% Covid samples in Telangana have UK virus variant

HYDERABAD:  The UK variant of Coronavirus, scientifically known as ‘B.1.1.7’ and labelled as a ‘Variant of Concern’ (VOC) in India, is now in circulation in Telangana. It has come to light that 10.5 per cent of all samples of Covid-19 infected persons collected at the community-level in the State and sequenced by the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) were of the UK variant.

The INSACOG also detected South African variant B.1.351 and ‘double mutant’ Coronavirus, B.1.617 — dubbed the ‘Variant of Interest’, in the State. However, their prevalence, as of now, is less than one per cent. Till now, the INSACOG sequenced 267 samples collected in Telangana. Of them, 28 cases are found to be of UK variant, two cases were of South African variant and one a ‘double mutant’ variant. 

One can get an idea of the highly infectious nature of UK variant from the fact that the prevalence of this variant among all samples from Delhi sequenced by the INSACOG was 28 per cent in March second week. However, by March last week this has increased to 50 per cent, as per information shared by Director of National Centre for Disease Control Dr Sujeet Kumar Singh. 

Dr Singh also said that the UK variant is the primary reason behind Covid-19 infections in Punjab and is a commonly detected variant among most northern states of the country. He shared the information during a public webinar on genome sequencing of the novel Coronavirus, organised by the Department of Biotechnology on Friday. 

However, Dr Singh made it clear that there exists no clear data regarding the impact of UK and South African variants on case fatalities and severity of Covid-19. Only known fact is that these VOCs are more infectious than the original Coronavirus that started the pandemic.