The National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has revelaed the reason behind the recent surge in Covid-19 cases in Delhi. NCDC said that the muted strain of Covid-19 virus are behind the recent increase of coronavirus cases in the national capital. Sujeet Singh, director of the National Centre for Disease Control has said this while addressing a a webinar, ‘Genome Sequencing of SARS-CoV-19’.
NCDC has revealed that 415 cases of the UK strain of coronavirus were found in genomes sequenced in Delhi, followed by 23 cases of the South African strain. 551 cases of UK variant were found in Punjab also. As per NCDC, in Delhi, there are primarily two types of variants — B.1.617 and the UK strain . The B.1.617 variant of coronavirus is also known as the double mutant strain.
The UK variant was found in 28 per cent of samples in the second week of March. In the last week of the month, 50 per cent of samples had this variant, said Singh.
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So far, 15,133 samples have been sequenced by INSACOG, a consortium formed in December last year to increase viral genomic surveillance in order to understand the spread of the coronavirus in a rapid and robust manner. NCDC is one of the 10 laboratories involved in the genome sequencing of coronavirus in the country.
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