India has identified “triple-mutant” strain in one of its states, raising new fears about the ability of health services to cope.
The virus that is doing rounds in Indian state of Bengal is increasingly being found to be an indigenous triple-mutation (B.1.618), only the second one identified from India after the double mutant type (B.1.617) reported last month, according to newspaper The Times of India.
Scientist said that the “Bengal strain” might be more infective and may be capable of escaping a person’s immune surveillance even if that person was earlier exposed to a virus without this mutation, and even if vaccinated.
However, there has been no research yet to either corroborate or dismiss the fears.
“The proportion of B.1.618 has been growing significantly in recent months in Bengal,” said Vinod Scaria, who researches genome mutations at the CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB) on Twitter, adding, “along with B.1.617 it forms a major lineage in West Bengal”.
Meanwhile, experts in India expressed the fear that the country may have to prepare itself for a long haul of Covid-19 — at least for the next 2-3 years — unless oral drugs that can effectively kill the virus are available over the counter.
“The future remains a mystery. Covid-19 may continue for long if the strains remain infectious, and hit us hard multiple times in the years to come, or it may disappear if the virus mutates to a very docile one similar to flu,” Neha Gupta, infectious diseases specialist said.
“The ideal situation will be oral drugs which can effectively kill the virus and are safe to use on an OPD basis. Till then, mask, hand hygiene and social distancing are of paramount importance for us and must remain a part of our lives for years to come,” she elaborated.
