Key Points:
- In a statement, the Health Ministry said: “INSACOG has informed that the Delta Plus Variant, currently a Variant of Interest (VOI)…”
- The health ministry informed that India is among the 9 countries in the world where the Delta Plus variant has been detected.
- An overall of 22 cases have been detected in the country and Maharashtra has 16/22 of the Delta Plus variant patients. Kerala and Madhya Pradesh have the rest.
- The Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said that there is almost 90% decline in the Covid cases since May 7.
Coronavirus has been mutating faster than ever and now as the second wave in the country ends, the third wave is set to rise higher than before.
A new variant that has been termed as the “Variant of Concern” is the Delta Plus Variant.
On Tuesday, the Health Ministry shared details about the three characteristics of the Delta Plus Variant.
The Three Characteristics:
- Increased Transmissibility
- Stronger binding to receptors of Lung cells
- Enough reduction in Monoclonal antibody response
In a statement, the Health Ministry said: “INSACOG has informed that the Delta Plus Variant, currently a Variant of Interest (VOI), has the following characteristics: Increased transmissibility, stronger binding to receptors of lung cells, Potential reduction in monoclonal antibody response.”
Not just this but the Union Health Ministry also warned the states of Maharashtra, Kerala and Madhya Pradesh on the Delta Plus variant of the Coronavirus as some of the districts in the states reported of the same variant in its patients.
It advised the authorities to strictly put in place the Covid-19 protocols and intensify containment measures in the districts where the variant has been found.
Preventing Crowds, Widespread Testing, Prompt Tracing and Priority based Vaccination has been advised too.
In the meet, the health ministry also informed that India is among the 9 countries in the world where the Delta Plus variant has been detected. The countries apart from India that have the variant are:
- China
- Japan
- Nepal
- Poland
- Portugal
- Russia
- Switzerland
- United Kingdom
- United States of America
As said in the statement by the Ministry, the variant was identified by the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium or INSACOG and hence, the government has urged states to send the testing samples to INSACOG labs to get directives about the same.
An overall of 22 cases, as of Monday, have been detected in the country and guess which states has the highest of them all? Yes.. Maharashtra yet again!
Maharashtra has 16/22 of the Delta Plus variant patients in the country.
Experts have already named the culprit of the third wave as the Delta Plus Variant.
The Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said that there is almost 90% decline in the Covid cases since May 7. A drastic decline of 84% in the weekly positivity rate has also been noted since the highest weekly positivity of 21.4% recorded between May 4 and 10.
