2 Gkp institutes to conduct research on different strains of Sars-CoV-2 in state

LUCKNOW: At a time when Uttar Pradesh government has sounded an alert over the new strain of Covid-19 found in UK, the microbiology department of Baba Raghav Das (BRD) Medical College, Gorakhpur and zoology department of DDU Gorakhpur University have decided to conduct a research on various variants of SarsCoV-2 in the state.

The research will be headed by Dr Amresh Singh, head of the microbiology department at BRD Medical College in Gorakhpur.

“The virus has gone through various trails of evolution. The focus of the research will be on evolution and transmission of Sars-CoV-2. The genotyping analysis of Sars-Cov-2 will be done employing the multiple sequence alignment of the genome of the virus, he said,” he said.

Various strains of Sars-CoV-2 are active in the state as well as across the country and that could be gauged from the fact that in some regions mortality rate was high than others. In some cases, it was detected that several members of a family died after infection whereas in other cases the mortality rate was low, Singh said.

The focus of the research will be also on the frequent mutation of the virus and its impact on the people belonging to various age groups.

“In big urban hubs like Mumbai and Delhi the mortality rate has been high. In Uttar Pradesh too the mortality has been high in Lucknow and Kanpur. Whereas the mortality rate has been comparatively low in the rural areas of Purvanchal region, Singh said.

He added “We will study the impact of the various strains of Sars-Cov-2 on human body.”

The five-member team will collect 500 samples for the study that aims at protecting human life infected with Covid-19, Singh said.