India, which is yet not done with the second Covid-19 wave, is now home to Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and Kappa variants of coronovirus with the proportion of cases with “variants of concerns” going up from 10.31 per cent in May to 51 per cent on June 20, as per the Government data.
Kappa variant, which the Government on Friday said got overshadowed by Delta strain, is again on the prowl with two cases reported from Uttar Pradesh on Friday. As per reports, a 66-year-old man who tested positive for Kappa variant in UP’s Sant Kabir Nagar has died.
However, so far Delta strain is considered to be most virulent and was responsible for the severe second Covid pandemic which had overwhelmed the health system in India in April-MAY this year.
Experts said the Kappa strain is not much harmful but more genome sequencing needs to be done.
Regarding Lambda which has spread over 30 countries with Peru becoming the worst hit, Joint Secretary in the Union Health Ministry Lav Agarwal said there is no case of the Lambda variant of SARS-CoV-2 in India at present, but it is closely monitoring the global landscape of this new variant.
“Lambda was the seventh variant of interest identified by the WHO (World Health Organisation) on June 14 and it has been detected in 25 countries,” he said.
“In our country, no cases have been reported and INSACOG is monitoring it and we are watchful. In Peru, 80 per cent infections were from this variant. It has also been found in South American countries and also in the UK and European countries, and any public health impact will be monitored,” Agarwal said.
NITI Aayog Member (Health) Dr V K Paul said the Lambda variant is a variant of interest so its total significance is still being explored.
“As far as we know it has not entered our country, we have not detected this variant in our country. Our surveillance system INSACOG is very effective and it will detect it if it happens to enter our country because when you do sequencing, all this will be picked up. So we should watch for that,” he said.
Dr Paul said the Lambda strain is a variant of interest which means its public health significance is being watched but it has not been proven for excessive transmissibility, for impact on excess severity or any other public health issues like those related to vaccines.
“We should be watchful for these variants because the virus is under pressure and when it goes under pressure then it tends to pick up characteristics that tend to help it in survival but as of now we should be watching such variants for their presence in our country but as of now we have no evidence that this has been detected in any part of our country,” he added.
Talking about Kappa strain, Dr Sumaiya Shaikh, founding-editor for Alt News Science and a neuroscientist in Sweden tweeted, some of the Kappa cases sequenced from the various States in India earlier this year - Goa, Madhya Pradesh and Arunachal Pradesh to name a few.
She further tweeted, “INSACOG needs more of this data. More sequencing and early detection of variants coupled with better policy decisions in controlling the spread.”
Chandrakant Lahariya, an epidemiologist said that “Kappa (B.1.617.1), a sub-lineage of B.1.617, a variant first reported from India in October last year is not harmful so people should not panic.”
Stressing that vaccination is key to safety, ICMR head Dr Balram Bhargava had recently said that vaccines Covishield and Covaxin work against SARS-CoV-2 variants Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta, while effectiveness tests against the Delta Plus variant are ongoing.
