NEW DELHI: India has confirmed a case of JN.1 subvariant of Omicron, which is leading to a fresh spike in Covid-19 cases in the US, China and Singapore.
According to the Union Health Ministry, the case was detected in Kerala as part of the ongoing routine surveillance activity by INSACOG, a multi-agency pan-India network tasked with monitoring new emerging Covid-19 variants.
As the first case of JN.1, which was first identified in Luxembourg and since has been spreading fast in several countries, surfaced in India, officials said they have started conducting a series of mock drills in all health facilities to assess their public health and hospital preparedness measures.
The ministry is in regular touch with the Kerala health authorities and is monitoring various points of entry, according to a ministry statement.
The sample from a 79-year-old woman had returned Covid positive in an RT-PCR test on November 18, officials said, adding that she had mild symptoms of influenza-like illness (ILI) and had recovered from Covid-19.
Officials also noted that there has been an increasing trend of Covid-19 cases from Kerala in the last few weeks. “This has been attributed to an increase in the number of samples from ILI cases being referred for testing."
A majority of these cases are clinically mild and recovering on their own at their homes without any treatment,” the officials added.
The ministry said that mock drills which started from December 13 are being carried out under the overall supervision of the district collectors and are likely to be completed by December 18.
According to Dr Rajeev Jayadevan, Co-Chairman of the National Indian Medical Association (IMA) Covid Task Force, JN.1 is the fastest-rising variant worldwide recently, and its presence in India is only to be expected because of global connectivity.
“With the worldwide holiday season and social gatherings, a rise in Covid-19 cases is to be expected,” he told this paper, adding that the last surge in India was seven months ago.
He further said that the behaviour of JN.1 is vastly different from that of its predecessor BA.2.86.
“While BA 2.86 was docile, JN.1 is aggressive in its ability to spread and to infect people,” he added.
“It is able to infect people in spite of their past vaccination status or natural immunity from having survived Covid in the past. Therefore, non-pharma interventions such as masks in high-risk situations and social distancing in a nuanced manner will need to be brought back, obviously depending on regional severity and caseload,” he added.
Although most cases are mild, repeated bouts of Covid can destabilise chronic disease conditions which are more common in older age groups, leading to undesirable outcomes, he further added.
Officials said more than 90 per cent of the Covid-19 cases in India at present are mild and they are in home isolation.
Earlier, an Indian traveller was also detected with the JN.1 sub-variant in Singapore. The person was a native of Tamil Nadu’s Tiruchirappalli district and had travelled to Singapore on October 25.
According to officials, the first case of JN.1 was detected as the ministry has revised surveillance guidelines in the context of Covid-19.
Now, patients with Influenza-like illness (ILI) and Severe acute respiratory infections (SARIs) are tested for Covid-19 and positive cases are referred for Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS).