New COVID variant found in US-UK, should India be afraid?

The cases of corona infection in the country have started increasing again. The good thing is that this time the chances of reaching the hospital due to its severity and disease are being seen very less. However, the government is still very cautious about this and is keeping a close watch on the patients admitted to the hospital. In this episode, on Monday, Director of the National Center for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr Surjit Singh said that we are closely monitoring the severity of corona infection and the patients reaching the hospital.

Search for US, UK variants
Dr Surjit Singh said that the good thing is that this time no new variant of corona has been seen in our country so far. He said, we are identifying that particular variant, which has been found in certain cases in the US, UK and some other countries. Apart from this, we are also monitoring the seriousness of people suffering from corona and the condition of the hospital. We are doing this investigation in these cases. For this, we are trying to find out in a particular sample whether there is any other variant in it. Dr Surjeet, however, also said that till now no such case has been seen.

Instructions for monitoring specific variants seriously
Dr Surjeet said, we are monitoring such cases. However, till now we have not found such a special case in which there is a new variant other than Omicron. Whatever variants are here, all belong to Omicron. He said that the genome sequence of samples sent from 396 sentinel sites of the country is under investigation. He said that the BA.2 sub-variant of Omicron has replaced all other variants. But its transmission and severity vary. It has been said by the Union Health Ministry that how it is affecting particular types of variants in India, it should be monitored seriously.