NEW DELHI: In what could be a new alarm to the Covid-19 pandemic globally, another variant of coronavirus has emerged in Africa’s most populous country, after distinct mutants of the virus have been reported from the UK and South Africa over the last few days.
Officials at the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, on Thursday, revealed the existence of the new P681H strain saying it is different from the ones found recently in the UK and South Africa but added that it still needs to be analysed whether the mutant virus is causing a rapid rise of Covid-19 in the African nation.
Back home, officials in the Union ministry of health and family welfare said that samples from about 25 travellers who have arrived in India from the UK over the last few days and have tested positive for Covid-19 are being further analysed to assess whether they carry the mutant virus.
“The results of spike gene RTPCR test take about 72 hours and are expected by Friday,” said an official in the Union ministry of health and family welfare.
Experts have said that while most mutations are either harmful to the virus or have no effect, a few mutations in this new variant looked as if they could potentially affect how the coronavirus spread.
The UK variant of the SARS-CoV-2, for example, is reported to be up to 70% more transmissible than, and what is more alarming is that this strain is affecting younger people.
Preliminary data from the UK shows that the virus is spreading quickly in parts of southern England, displacing other variants that have been circulating for months.
Indian authorities have said that the new strain has so far not been found in India, at least as far as anyone knows. However, the variant has already spread globally. Apart from the UK, the variant has been detected in Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Australia, according to the World Health Organisation.
A similar but separate variant has also been identified in South Africa.
The Indian government early this week suspended flights from the United Kingdom until the end of the year over fears of the new strain and a detailed standard operating procedure has been shared by the states to carry out an epidemiological exercise to detect the new mutant virus.