New Delhi, Aug 30 (IANS) India must be prepared for another Covid-19 outbreak, said an expert on Friday, amid rise in cases in several countries including the US and South Korea.
According to estimates from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Covid infections are increasing across 25 states in the country. South Korea is also seeing an outbreak with a significant number of related hospitalisations.
The latest update from the World Health Organization (WHO) showed that between June 24 and July 21, an average of 17,358 Covid specimens were tested for SARS-CoV-2 every week across 85 countries.
India also witnessed 908 new Covid-19 cases, and two deaths between June and July this year, as per the WHO.
“While the situation isn’t severe in India as in the other countries, we need to be really prepared for it,” Professor Deepak Sehgal, Virologist at the Shiv Nadar University in Noida, told IANS.
“The virus has certainly reemerged. And the WHO reported that there have been around 26 per cent of the deaths and 11 per cent increase in the occurrence of this virus. And that is quite alarming,” he added.
The recent outbreak is driven by KP variants — belonging to the Omicron lineage. Omicron was highly transmissible and showed great immune escape. First identified globally in January, KP.2 is a descendant of Omicron’s JN.1. In India, KP.2 was first detected in December 2023 in Odisha.
KP strains are the derivatives of the Omicron variant with three mutations in the spike region, Sehgal said.
Data from INSACOG (Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium), showed that the variant is already in circulation in India. KP.x — which includes KP.3.1.1 and its relatives such as the FLiRT variant or KP.2 — account for nearly 39 per cent of all Covid sequence samples in India collected in the last week of July.
Meanwhile, the Union Health Ministry’s Covid dashboard showed that several states in India are seeing an increase in Covid cases — with 279 active cases.
Assam, New Delhi, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, and Madhya Pradesh are experiencing a rise in infections.
According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), the highly transmissible
KP.1 and KP.2 strains, which evolved from the JN.1 Omicron variant, are responsible for the surge in Covid cases in India.
However, there has been no increase in hospitalisations or severity of illness so far, Union Health Minister J.P. Nadda informed Parliament in July.
Sehgal said the “government has stepped surveillance, particularly with genome sequencing”.
Efforts are also being made to ensure that vaccines and booster doses are readily available in the population.
“We can have one dose of a booster vaccine that would really help. Otherwise, there are quite a number of risks that we would need to mitigate in future”, the expert said.
–IANS
rvt/
Disclaimer
The information contained in this website is for general information purposes only. The information is provided by TodayIndia.news and while we endeavour to keep the information up to date and correct, we make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availability with respect to the website or the information, products, services, or related graphics contained on the website for any purpose. Any reliance you place on such information is therefore strictly at your own risk.
In no event will we be liable for any loss or damage including without limitation, indirect or consequential loss or damage, or any loss or damage whatsoever arising from loss of data or profits arising out of, or in connection with, the use of this website.
Through this website you are able to link to other websites which are not under the control of TodayIndia.news We have no control over the nature, content and availability of those sites. The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.
Every effort is made to keep the website up and running smoothly. However, TodayIndia.news takes no responsibility for, and will not be liable for, the website being temporarily unavailable due to technical issues beyond our control.
For any legal details or query please visit original source link given with news or click on Go to Source.
Our translation service aims to offer the most accurate translation possible and we rarely experience any issues with news post. However, as the translation is carried out by third part tool there is a possibility for error to cause the occasional inaccuracy. We therefore require you to accept this disclaimer before confirming any translation news with us.
If you are not willing to accept this disclaimer then we recommend reading news post in its original language.