At least six fully vaccinated Covid patients in Indore and its neighborhood in Madhya Pradesh have been found infected for the AY.4 variant – which is the sub-lineage of the Delta variant. The AY.4 is a variant of concern.
The six patients, the genome sequencing of whose samples revealed that they were infected with the sub-lineage of the Delta variant, include three patients from Indore city and three from Indore district’s Mhow town (all are possibly Army personnel).
The samples of these asymptomatic patients were sent for genome sequencing to National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC-New Delhi) in September. The reports from NCDC were received last week only. The six patients (all asymptomatic) were aged between 41 and 80 years.
Confirming that samples of six fully vaccinated patients have been found infected with the AY.4 sub-lineage of Delta variant, the Indore district chief medical and health officer (CMHO) Dr BS Saitya said that so far 50 contacts of these people have been traced.
All these six people have a travel history of other cities and states, but no international travel history.
The AY.4 variant was first reported in the country in Maharashtra. One percent of samples from Maharashtra in April had been found positive with the AY.4 sub-lineage of the Delta variant. The same sublineage of the Delta variant was detected in 2% of samples from Maharashtra, whose genome sequencing was done in July. It surged up to 44% in the samples from the western state whose genome sequencing was done in August.
"As per the report received from the Delhi-based National Center for Disease Control (NCDC), six persons were found infected with the AY.4 variant of coronavirus. Their samples were sent for genome sequencing along with other infected persons in September," chief medical and health officer (CMHO) BS Saitya said on Monday.
The CMHO said over 50 people who came in contact with these six persons in the last few days were found to be healthy after testing.
Meanwhile, Dr Anita Mutha, who heads the microbiology department of the Indore-based Government Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Medical College, said AY.4 is a new variant of coronavirus and not much information is available about its severity.
A total of 1,53,202 Covid cases were found in the Indore district so far. Among them, 1,391 have succumbed to the coronavirus infection.
Indore district remained worst affected in MP when the Covid pandemic raged. However, due to the rapid pace of vaccination, the number of new infections found of late has trickled down to one or two per day.