As the country begins the unlockdown process, AIIMS Chief has warned the government about the delta plus variant of coronavirus. Stressing on the aggressive nature of coronavirus mutants, Dr. Randeep Guleria said that “delta plus variant could become a ‘variant of concern’ if unchecked.
The delta plus variant is a mutated version of the B.1.617.2 strain that induced the second wave of coronavirus infection in India. “The virus is undergoing additional mutation called K417N which could become variant of concern if unchecked,” said Dr. Guleria stressing that India should take a lesson from UK’s ongoing third wave.
Further, he mentioned that with the unlock process, India is again witnessing a lack of covid appropriate behavior as people have started crowding public places like local markets, metro stations, etc. India could see a faster surge in coronavirus cases following this negligent behavior. Meanwhile, he insisted on aggressive surveillance to guard any spike in any region of the country.
“Delta plus variant which is of the same lineage as Delta variant, with a slight change as there is one more mutation found, could be a cause of concern because this mutation, the K417N, is something that may change the virus to some extent as far as its infectivity is concerned,” said AIIMS Chief.
"What we need to do is observe. Currently, the WHO has said that this is a variant of interest but it could become a variant of concern. Will this Delta plus again become the dominant variant that is something that we need to observe over the next few weeks," he added in an interview with NDTV.
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So far, the B.1.617.2 coronavirus variant is characterized as one of the highly infectious variants. The virus’s spike protein helps it to enter and infect human cells. Similarly, the K417N mutation of this variant is associated with immune escape or evasion that leaves it more immune to the vaccine or any form of drug.
“We should not take this virus casually. We have to understand that virus is changing and it is changing to survive and infect more people. Thus, we have to be aggressive and try and be ahead of the virus,” said Dr. Guleria.
He further added that “the UK did a very good job by having an aggressive lockdown for many many months. when they started opening up, the new variant, the delta variant, caused the surge in a number of cases. What it means is we are also in a similarly vulnerable situation and if we are not careful right now then 3 or 4 months from now, we will again have a similar situation and that is why we need to be very aggressive; it is mutating, changing, new variants are coming up.”
Earlier, Dr. Guleria had said that to determine the behavior of the new virus variant, the experts need aggressive genome sequencing. So far, no answer is available to the questions like- Does the vaccine efficacy come down, does the monoclonal antibody treatment work?
“To do all of that, we need to have a large or very good network of labs to study the data. I think that's where to move in the next few weeks. And that's the new frontier we need to develop if we want to succeed in our fight against Covid,” said AIIMS chief.