UK labels coronavirus from India as ‘variant of concern’

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson says the situation needs to be handled carefully

NEW DELHI: UK health officials on Friday labelled a coronavirus variant first found in India a “variant of concern” and said it appeared to spread at least as readily as the one they found last year, which went on to trigger new waves of Covid-19 and force several countries into lockdown.

New data seen in India too suggested this may be true. As per the latest genome sequencing data shared by Indian labs with the global repository GISAID - B.1.617.1 and B.1.617.2 accounted for 58% of all samples submitted in the last 30 days.

The B.1.617.2 is one of three lineages of the B.1.617 variant that is expanding its footprint in India, with experts fearing it may be behind the relentless surge in cases that has crushed the country’s health care system.

Public Health England on Friday announced it has found B.1.617.2 to have spread in Britain in a way similar to the early days of B.1.1.7, which is now known as the UK variant.

Cases of the B.1.617.2 variant increased to 520 from 202 over the last week, PHE said, mainly in London and the northwest town of Bolton, with almost half the cases related to contact with a traveller.

“I think we’ve got to be very careful about that,” UK PM Boris Johnson told reporters, in reference to the variant, Reuters reported. “We’re doing a huge amount, obviously, to make sure that when we do find outbreaks of the Indian variant that we do surge testing, that we do door-to-door testing.”

PHE cited evidence that it spreads more quickly than the original version of the virus and could spread as quickly as the B.1.1.7.

“There is currently insufficient evidence to indicate that any of the variants recently detected in India cause more severe disease or render the vaccines currently deployed any less effective,” PHE said in a statement.

According to an analysis of GISAID genome sequencing data on outbreak.info, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand have reported high numbers of the B.1.617.2 variant, with Bihar also reporting several samples with B.1.617.1.

This analysis, to be sure, is based on the data uploaded to GISAID, and may not reflect the entire scale of the outbreak or how these variants are displacing others.

The original variant first seen in India, B.1.617, was first detected in October, but PHE as well as Indian experts have categorised three different subtypes, all with slightly different mutations.

Other variants of concern include variants first identified in Kent, southeast England, as well as South Africa and Brazil.

The B.1.617 has also been classified as a VOC and the Union health ministry on Wednesday said the variant was found in 1,504 samples that were sequenced, compared to 1,391 samples that showed the

UK variant.

The fresh clues will have several implications for India: a variant that is more transmissible will require stricter curbs such as lockdowns for containment and countries are likely to keep arrivals from India suspended until the outbreak is controlled.

But to understand more of how it has behaved, experts have urged Indian authorities to release details of when and where samples with the variant was found, which could help determine if it is indeed displacing other variants.

Experts said the UK data confirmed the B.1.617.2 may be fitter. “The rate of growth of B.1.617.2 against B.1.1.7 seems to be similar to the rate at which B.1.1.7 replaced the previous variant. This means relative fitness of B.1.617.2 vs B.1.1.7 may be similar to the relative fitness of B.1.1.7 vs previous variants,” said Deepti Gurdasani, an epidemiologist Queen Mary University of London, in a tweet.

“This is concerning because we have seen how quickly a new more transmissible variant can change the shape of the pandemic and how quickly these can spread. Currently, B.1.617.2 appears to be doubling every week, so it may become dominant in some parts of the UK in 2-4 weeks,” she added.