Novel variant with double mutation spotted in Maharashtra

The Union Health Ministry on Wednesday confirmed the presence of a novel Covid-19 variant in Maharashtra with two genetic mutations that enable the virus to escape the immune systems and increase the infectivity.

But the ministry stopped short of linking the novel variant with the high surge of Covid-19 cases in Maharashtra citing insufficient scientific and epidemiological evidence.

India on Wednesday recorded a spike in fresh Covid-19 cases and death toll with the reporting of 47,262 new cases and 275 deaths in the past 24 hours.

The number of total active cases has shot up to 3.68 lakh and nine of the top ten districts with maximum number of active cases are in Maharashtra. Bangalore Urban is the tenth one.

The novel SARS-CoV-2 variant with double mutations had been found in 15-20% of samples sequenced from Maharashtra, Sujit Singh, director, National Centre for Disease Control, said, asserting that any link with the current surge couldn’t be established with such a sample size.

Read | Covid-19 surge in Maharashtra, Punjab of grave concern: Health Ministry

Nearly 20% samples from Nagpur carry the double mutation. The samples were collected from eight municipal wards that witnessed the least impact during the epidemic's first wave.

Since mutations or tiny changes in genetic make-up are natural in the evolution of a virus, Singh said scientists were probing the Maharashtra variant with double mutation to check if there is any link with the common surge.

While 206 Maharashtra samples harbour both the mutations (named E484Q and L452R), there are 112 samples that carry the E484Q alone. Another 118 samples carry L452R only.

In addition, 123 samples from Kerala carry a mutation called N440K, which was earlier reported extensively from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. In Punjab, as many as 324 virus samples carry a mutation named N501Y.

"But none of the mutant variants has been detected in sufficient numbers to explain the rapid increase in cases in some states. Genomic sequencing and epidemiological studies are continuing to further analyse the situation," the Union Health Ministry said in a statement.

A network of 10 Indian laboratories that conducted the genetic sequencing have also found 771 internationally known variants of concern including 736 UK variants (B.1.1.7), 34 South Africa variants (B.1.351) and a lone case of Brazilian (P.1) lineage. The samples with such variants of concerns have been found in 18 states.