Seven cases of the new Covid-19 variant- AY.4, which is a sub lineage of the Delta variant- has been detected in Madhya Pradesh’s Indore in a genome sequencing report. The report, released by the National Centre of Disease Control (NCDC) were based on the samples collected in September.
A report in The Times of India quoted Indore Chief Medical and Health Officer Dr BS Saitya as saying that two army officers posted in the Mhow Cantonment were infected with the new mutant.
The AY.4 variant has been detected in 1 percent samples in Maharashtra. The NCDC report said that the sub-lineage had caused the Covid surge in Indore district in September, when the Covid-19 infections had jumped by 64 percent in August.
Around 30 trainees and officers at the Army War College in Mhow had tested Covid-19 positive between September 23-25. BS Setiya, chief medical and health officer had reportedly told Hindustan Times that the 24 trainee officers and six officers, who returned from different states after training, had tested positive. The patients were asymptomatic and had received both the vaccine doses. Their samples were later sent for genome sequencing.
Dr BS Saitya reportedly said the NCDC had released the first report in October 1 and the rest were released on October 16.
Dr Anita Mutha, HoD of microbiology department at MGM Medical College, said that the new mutant- AY.4 is a sub-lineage of Delta variant. “It is neither Delta nor Delta-plus,” she told Times of India. According to Dr Mutha, Maharasthra was the first to report some cases of this sub-lineage in India.
The new mutant is a ‘variant of interest’ right now and there is very little knowledge about its transmissibility, or whether it could cause severe infection and whether it can cause breakthrough infections, the report said.
According to the NCDC, five new cases of Delta plus variant have been detected in the district.
The AY.4.2 belongs to the same family of mutations that define the B.1.617.2, or Delta, variant of the novel coronavirus that was first identified in India in October last year and was seen as having fuelled the second wave of cases in the country. It is an offshoot of an offshoot of the Delta variant, being a variation on the AY.4 sublineage. The Delta variant, incidentally, now has 55 sublineages.
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