Coronavirus India update: No case of C.1.2 variant in country so far
Maria Van Kerkhove, World Health Organization's (WHO) technical lead for Covid-19 on Tuesday, said C.1.2 variant had been found in at least six countries.
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According to WHO, the researchers in South Africa first presented their findings on variant C.1.2 to the WHO Virus Evolution Working Group on July 21. The WHO said till date, there were 100 sequences of C.1.2 reported globally from the earliest reports from South Africa and currently, it did not appear to be "increasing in circulation".
The new variant was first reported in South Africa in May. Researchers say C.1.2 variant has 40-59 mutations, more than the original Wuhan virus. The research involves scientists from the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) and the KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform (KRISP).
However, experts say that the variant is not a cause of concern as of now or no need to get anxious based on the data that researchers have found. "Too early to conclude much. It is a variant of interest and will be monitored," said Anurag Agrawal, Director, CSIR Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB).
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Dr Rajeev Jayadevan, vice chairman of research cell at Kerala State Medical Association said, "This is a variant that has been described in South Africa by a reputed team of researchers, who have prior experience with such work. I will say that many such changes occur in the course of the lifecycle of the virus, and not all these changes are permanent."
"In other words, it's almost like the viruses experimenting with themselves to see how they can adapt themselves or change themselves in subtle ways to adapt to the human host, remember this virus only found the human host, since, about a year and a half," Dr Jayadevan added.
-PTC News
