India’s first confirmed case of the Omicron sub-variant BA.4 has been reported from Hyderabad. The case was reportedly found on May 9 and confirmed on Friday. This prompted the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) to restart contact tracing and maintaining the Covid 19 data after a gap of almost three months.
An NCDC team has already tested 24-25 people who came in direct contact with the African national infected with the BA.4 sub variant, the first case in India detected in Hyderabad, said a government official on condition of anonymity.
The Union health ministry and Indian SARS-CoV-2 Consortium on Genomics (INSACOG) called a meeting on Friday to firm up a surveillance strategy. Last week, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) had asked countries to be vigilant about the BA.4 and BA.5 variants after a spike in BA.5 infections in Portugal.
According to the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD), in South Africa, the BA.4 and BA.5 differ from one another in mutations that are outside of the spike of the gene, but are identical to each other in terms of spike mutations.
It may be noted that the BA.4 variants was first detected on January 10, 2022, in Limpopo. On the other hand, the BA.5 Omicron sub-variant was first found on February 25, 2022, in KwaZulu-Natal. Besides South Africa, the two variants have so far been found in the UK, USA, and Botswana.
According to the World Health Organization, contact tracing is key to stop further transmission of SARS-CoV-2. Though ECDC said BA.4 and BA.5 are variants of concern, experts said that as of now it is difficult to predict public health concerns. “INASCOG is a platform for variant mapping. More variants will emerge, but only time will tell if a new variant is a public health concern. So, one should neither create panic nor lower vigil,” said Dr Samiran Panda, additional director general at the Indian Council of Medical Research.
In the past 24 hours, 2,259 fresh covid cases were reported in India to take the tally of active cases to 15,044 with a weekly positivity rate at 0.53%. Delhi (2,377), Haryana (1,248), Uttar Pradesh (898), Kerala (3,579), Karnataka (1,726) and Maharashtra (1,720) have the maximum active cases. Approximately 2,614 patients have recovered from covid in the last 24 hours.