Milder COVID-19 variant identified by Hyderabad researchers
According to the higher authorities of CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, scientists at the CSIR-CCMB have identified a prominent variant of SARS-CoV-2 in southern India.
Rakesh Mishra, Director, CCMB, claimed that the different strain – N440K seems to be milder than the existing one. The organization is initiating studies on it to establish its pervasiveness in India.
This variant was detected amidst the concerns of detecting a mutated variant of SARS-CoV-2 in the United Kingdom.
Rakesh Mishra stated that it is not a new variant that we discovered; rather, it is a different variant. This variant is existing for quite a long period. This variant was present in a very small proportion during September and October 2020. However, currently, it seems like it is taking a much larger proportion.
He further stated that this milder form of SARS-CoV-2 – N440K has no symptoms issues reported yet.
Rakesh Mishra described that either this N440K has become normal or the earlier one ended up being a weaker variant. However, if the N440K variant does not show symptoms similar or severe to the original variant, then it is milder. There is not much information available
to validate it. The scientists are speeding up to gather data of this SARS-CoV-2 variant. Soon, large scale sequencing will be performed.He further stated that the different variant – N440K is detected in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh and in some other states in south India. Researchers don’t have adequate information to determine its presence in other parts of India.
According to him, CCMB didn’t observe any rise in the number of cases or symptoms with the N440K variant of SARS-CoV-2.
CCMB has been working on COVID-19 research since the incipience of this pandemic. The scientists from CCMB had developed a dry swab one-step PCR test and NGS-based COVID-19 testing. They had also conducted wastewater-based COVID-19 mass surveillance to evaluate the prevalence of the virus.
Milder COVID-19 variant identified by Hyderabad researchers
