Is Andhra Covid strain deadlier? This is what you must know
Bhubaneswar: Amid the buzz around Andhra Pradesh variant or N440K variant of coronavirus, scientists today clarified about the lethality of the new mutant.
The N440K variant of coronavirus, which was first discovered in Kurnool of Andhra Pradesh, has been stated to be 10 times more infectious. Currently, the new variant was also seen in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, parts of Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh.
Scientists at CSIR-Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology (CCMB), a premier research organization in frontier areas of modern biology, revealed that a preprint prepared by the lab showed the N440K variant (also known as B.1.36) has more infectious than its parent lineage A2a ( also known as D614G mutant or B.1.1.8) and an unrelated A3i variant (also known as B.6).
Vishal Sah, a researcher at the CCMB, stated, however, the study has not showed the N440K virus is the deadliest. Apart from this, the new mutant cannot be seen as a definitive cause of the second wave in India.
Sah further stated as there has been shortage of the sequencing in the Indian subcontinent and clear patient data are not available, a clinical study is quite challenging.
So a few days back we published a preprint from our lab that N440K variant (also known as B.1.36) has more infectious fitness than its parent lineage A2a ( also known as D614G mutant or B.1.1.8) and an unrelated A3i variant (aka B.6)
— Vishal Sah (@acurious_one) May 4, 2021
We have also suggested that based on the sequence information on @GISAID till April 24th 2021, the proportion of N440K variants are increasing, clustering in some regions more than the others.
— Vishal Sah (@acurious_one) May 4, 2021
Nowhere in the study it’s been said that the N440K virus is the deadliest. Nowhere in the study it’s been said that it is definitive cause of second wave happening in India, and nowhere in the study it’s been said that #N440K is more dangerous than #UK strain or #DoubleMutant
— Vishal Sah (@acurious_one) May 4, 2021
Totally agree with the fact that UK and double mutant will ultimately take over N440K at their current rate of spread, and no need to panic about N440K being more ‘deadly’
Being more infectious and being lethal are two totally different things.— Vishal Sah (@acurious_one) May 4, 2021
Infectivity of a strain depends upon many factors which involves how efficiently it can enter the host, how fast it can use host machinery to replicate and make new virus particles and how efficiently it can escape the immune response from the host
— Vishal Sah (@acurious_one) May 4, 2021
We did not compare the infective titer of N440K with UK or double mutant in this study. We compared it with its parent strain which did not have N440K mutation and with another strain which is now almost lost among the population.
— Vishal Sah (@acurious_one) May 4, 2021
And we found that N440K is 10 times more infective than A2a and about 1000 times more infective than A3i. The comparison between UK and double mutant is yet to be done…and all these are in cell culture models.
— Vishal Sah (@acurious_one) May 4, 2021
But with the sequencing shortage from Indian subcontinent and lack of clear patient data and history among this pandemic, it will be challenging to perform a clinical study…. difficult but not impossible!
— Vishal Sah (@acurious_one) May 4, 2021
Meanwhile, as soon as the news on the Andhra Pradesh variant broke out, the Odisha government scrambled to prevent spread of the new mutant.
The Odisha Government announced a 14-day mandatory institutional quarantine for those returning from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana states.
In an order, the Odisha government stated, “Anyone coming to Odisha from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana by personal/hired vehicles/trains or entering the state in any other mode shall undergo mandatory institutional quarantine for 14 days in cluster TMCs to be managed by BDO/EO of urban areas.”
Collectors of Ganjam, Gajapati, Rayagada, Koraput, Malkangiri and Nabarangpur were also directed to put border check posts on all inter-state roads along Andhra Pradesh and Telangana border with immediate effect.
Today, the Odisha Chief Secretary and the Special Relief Commissioner spoke to the Collectors of Koraput, Kalahandi, Malkangiri and Nabrangpur districts through video conference to set up temporary covid centres (TMCs) for the returnees from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
Comments are closed.