The Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has announced the discovery of a new strain of coronavirus classified as “double mutant”. It receives its name because it affects two places on the spicule, a practically unusual fact to date. It includes two mutations: E484Q and L452R, and does not match any of those previously detected.
Ramanan Laxminarayan, responsible and founder of the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy in New Delhi, clarified that nor it is a scientific term, but rather it is “a new mutant that seems to be unique to India”.
No need to create alarm
The mutation has been found in more than 200 samples taken in the western-central state of Maharashtra, where 114.2 million inhabitants reside. About 20% of the evidence was found in the Nagpur city, a major commercial and logistics center of the country.
Although, as Laxminarayan assured, there is no need to be alarmed “because nor we have evidence that these variants are more transmissible or more lethal than what we already have “. Furthermore, epidemiologists believe that the new strain not detected in large enough quantities as to associate it with the increase in cases and deaths that are occurring in several states.
Study of the situation
This is stated by the India SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG), which is a grouping of 10 national laboratories in charge of carrying out sequencing and analysis of the pathogen throughout the country.
In their first conclusions they emphasize that there has been an increase in E484Q and L452R mutations that presumably “confer immune escape and increased infectivity”. Despite this, they add that it is necessary to continue in the same line as before the rest of the variants found: “Increased testing, comprehensive close contact follow-up, rapid case isolation and positive contacts.”
Badly hit by the pandemic
From the Ministry they point out that “epidemiological and genomic sequencing studies continue to further analyze the situation. “India is the third country hardest hit by the pandemic: it touches 12 million infections and exceeds 160,000 deaths.