Report on 95% samples sent for new Covid strain test still awaited

AMRITSAR: Punjab is struggling to check the prevalence of mutant strains in the state as the health department has no definite idea on whether these new variants of the virus are leading to the recent surge in coronavirus. The state department has received only 22 of 450 genome sequencing reports (5%) of samples that it had sent to the Centre’s epidemiology units for testing. The samples were sent in first week of January 2021 to the National Institute of Virology, Pune, National Centre for Disease Control, Delhi and Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, Delhi.

After the emergence of the new UK-linked coronavirus variant in the country in December 2020, which has high transmissibility, the Union health ministry had directed states and the UTs to send random samples of people. The samples were to be drawn from all residents of state who were tested positive for Covid-19 in their RT-PCR tests, from September-December 2020 to national research institutes for genome sequencing. Genome sequencing attempts to draw out the complete genetics. Of the new strains (UK, South Africa and Brazil) detected in India, the UK strain is believed to be the highly transmissible and 70% more infectious than the other known variants. Experts claim there is a chance of an outbreak of new strains in the state as reports are yet to be confirmed as ‘negative’.

“The national units of epidemiology have huge pendency of samples as gene sequencing is not very commonly done. Of the around 450 swab samples of randomly Covid-19 positive people, sent from Government Medical Colleges of Amritsar and Patiala, we have received reports of only 22 people,” said Hussan Lal, principal secretary health, Punjab. He added, “Since all 22 are negative, we cannot speculate that the new variants are spreading.”