NEW DELHI: One specific SARS-CoV-2 gene strain has been found in larger proportions in three states with the highest deaths per number of confirmed cases, say scientists at the National Institute of Biomedical Genomics.
Bhaswati Pandit, Assistant Professor at NIBMG and Bornali Bhattacharjee, Ramanujan Fellow, NIBMG, used a total of 305 Indian SARS-CoV genome sequences in an effort to understand the evolution of viruses, trace the routes of infection and gauge the clustering patterns across states.
The highest number of deaths per number of confirmed cases were recorded in Gujarat (14.5%), MP (10%) and Bengal (11.4%) and all the three states reported the largest presence of haplotype clade G in majority of sequenced genomes.
The viral isolates from Bihar which has much lower mortality rate (0.5%) were distributed among the clade Lv and its branches.
The isolate sequences from Delhi which has 3.7% mortality were found to be distributed across both the major clusters and sub-clusters.