Preparing For Lockdown: India Detects More Than 24K Mutations In 7K Variants of Coronavirus

The top official told on Tuesday that India’s genetic diagnosis laboratory has detected more than 24,000 mutations in the SARS-CoV-2 strain in the past year.

Officials added that the mutation has been found in approximately 7,000 variants of the novel coronavirus that is circulating in the country.

We have detected about 24,300 mutations in the 7,000 virus variants currently circulating, an important official member of the national Covid-19 task force informed.

In December last year, a part of the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genome Consortia (INSACOG) established by the Union Ministry of Health was also confirmed SARS-CoV-2 virus in the United Kingdom, South Africa, and other parts of the world by the contact of the laboratory staff.

INSACOG consists of 10 laboratories, including DBT-NIBMG Kalyani, ICMR-NIV Pune, DBT-ILS Bhubaneswar, DBT-NCCS Pune, DBT-CDFD Hyderabad, CSIR-CCMB Hyderabad, DBT -InSTEM/NCBS Bangalore, CSIR-IGIB Delhi, NIMHANS Bangalore, and NCDC Delhi’s overall goal is to regularly monitor the SARS-CoV-2 genome variants through a multi-laboratory network.

The National Center for Disease Control, operated by the center, is an agency of the consortium.

NCDC director Sujeet Kumar Singh also confirmed through IANS that India has recorded more than 24,000 viral mutations.

He said: We have found these mutations in more than 6,000 variants and submitted them to an international consortium, which collects data to predict and analyze the spread of the virus in geographic locations.

Since the daily increase in Covid-19 infections, people have been exploring the possibility that there are undiscovered or multiple new strains of coronavirus, which may be attributed to the gradual increase that the country has witnessed in the past week.

Although cases in Kerala and Maharashtra continue to increase, infections in Punjab, Chhattisgarh, and Madhya Pradesh are a trend on the rise.

However, Singh added that so far, there is no evidence that this mutation has promoted effective transmission in the country. 

He said: So far, no correlation has been established between the variants reported in several states and the increase in the number of cases. It is still under investigation.

N440K Variants Spread In Southern States

Over 200,000 viral mutations have been recorded worldwide. But do all mutations increase the number of cases? These mutations are a natural process of pathogen evolution. It only makes sense when it induces changes in the trend of disease spread, Singh explained.

Recently, the Scientific and Industrial Research Council-Centre for Cell and Molecular Biology (also one of INSACOG laboratories) released a research report stating that N440K (a new Covid-19 variant) is spreading widely in southern states.

The scientists introduced their findings from the analysis of more than 5,000 coronavirus variants and their evolution during the pandemic. The document stated that the document recorded the peak mutation trend of SARS-CoV-2, showing the peak mutation that is a high prevalence in the country and abroad.

The study concluded: The result of this comprehensive study is that due to the natural process of mutation, variants will continue to appear.

In addition to this, with 10,584 the number of coronavirus fresh infections in India, COVID-19 caseload rose to 1,10,16,434 yesterday.

According to data released by the Union Ministry of Health yesterday morning, the total number of Covid-19 deaths in the country has increased to 1,56,463, with 78 new fatalities.

The number of people recovering from the disease surged to 1,07,12,665. The number of active coronavirus infections in the country has decreased to 1,47,306.

According to data from the Medical Research Council of India, as of February 22; 21,22,30,431 samples have been tested, of which 6,78,685 samples were tested on Monday.

The Union Ministry of Health emphasized that more than 70% of deaths are caused by comorbidities.

Preparing for Lockdown

In Maharashtra, the outcry of COVID-19 illness began to grow again. In view of the increasing number of cases, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray has called on the people of the country to abide by the rules.

In order to control the deteriorating situation, some people are talking about putting a lockdown again. In this case, many cities have increased their strictness.

Moreover, the strictness for the public is higher than ever before. But now, on the other hand, the government is surrounded by questions due to exemption from certain VIP parties.

The MP’s son’s marriage did not follow the corona guidelines. By the way, it is important that many big figures of the country have joined the party. These include Sharad Pawar, Sanjay Raut, Devendra Fadnavis, Arvind Sawant, and other names.

Maharashtra government minister Chhagan Bhujbal has also been hit by the COVID-19 disease. During this period, he informed himself about being corona positive on Monday.

In this case, the most worrying thing is that Jayant Patil participated in many programs the day before.

Now, this poses a widespread danger. The day before, Minister Chhagan Bhujbal was with Sharad Pawar. At the same time, Jayant Patil also participated in the program. In addition to this, Chhagan Bhujbal himself talked about lockdown the day before, but now he is also under the grip of Corona.

Besides this, with the outbreak of a new wave of the epidemic corona, the danger in Maharashtra is increasing. In this case, the possibility of lockdown becomes greater and greater.

In this case, due to the increasingly serious corona crisis, Nagpur’s strictness has increased again. Now, school, college, or tuition classes will be closed in Nagpur from February 25th to March 7th.

At the same time, the weekly market has closed, the capacity of the hotel restaurant has reached 50% again, and the rule of opening until 9 pm has been implemented.