N440K COVID-19 variant, which wreaked havoc in India during first wave, now fading, say CCMB scientists

Hyderabad: The N440K variant of , which wreaked havoc during the first wave of the pandemic in the country is diminishing and likely to disappear soon, scientists at CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) said.

Dismissing media reports that N440K is the variant causing chaos in Visakhapatnam and other parts of Andhra Pradesh, Divya Tej Sowpati a scientist at CCMB said while N440K was indeed a mutation of concern in South India during and after the first wave, current data show it is replaced by new variants such as B1617 and B117.

"N440K is at very low levels in Visakhapatnam and Andhra Pradesh in general. It is there in less than five percent of the samples. It is incorrect to say it is causing havoc. The B1617 variant is dominating now in most parts of the country, Sowpati told PTI.

Advisor to CCMB in a tweet said, "N440K variant of SARS-CoV-2 is diminishing and likely to disappear soon."

When comparing the data from MH, in MH we can see that the increase in B.1.617 is seen in Feb rather than Mar 2021, and again we observe a reduction in proportion of lineages with N440K. pic.twitter.com/mLeLmm37xV

— Divya Tej Sowpati (@TejSowpati) May 3, 2021

Further elaborating, Sowpati said it was difficult to state as to how many variants exist in the world now because every time it mutates and replicates.

In KL, though not much data is available on GISAID, we can see from https://t.co/CirbLkPmOV that B.1.1.7 is increasing at present, whereas N440K is present in <20% of the genomes

Pics courtesy: @vinodscaria pic.twitter.com/lIydxrI7Bp

— Divya Tej Sowpati (@TejSowpati) May 3, 2021

Some variants are more infectious than the others, but it can't be specified if a particular one is more dangerous.

While comparing the data from Maharashtra, it was found that the increase in the B1617 is seen in February than March 2021 and there was a reduction in N440K, he noted.

In Maharashtra, the second wave started a month and a half earlier than the four southern states along with the explosion of B1617 at the expense of N440K, Sowpati added.