Rajesh Tope says officials asked to closely monitor Delta Plus variant in Maha
India has reported 40 cases of Delta Plus variant of till now, with most cases detected in Maharashtra, Kerala and Madhya Pradesh
Maharashtra health minister Rajesh Tope on Wednesday said that he has directed officials to closely monitor the Delta Plus variant of SARS-CoV-2 causing Covid-19 disease, and that information about these cases should be collected and recorded for study. “We are taking 100 samples from every district,” ANI quoted him as saying.
India has reported as many as 40 cases of Delta Plus variant, ANI reported on Wednesday citing government sources. “As of now among the samples sequenced (45,000+) in India, this variant has been observed sporadically in Maharashtra, Kerala and Madhya Pradesh with around 40 cases identified so far and no significant increase in prevalence,” a statement by the government read.
Retrospective analysis of samples revealed the first occurrence of the Delta Plus variant from a sample collected from Maharashtra on April 5 this year, the statement further read.
The Centre has advised Maharashtra, Kerala and Madhya Pradesh for strengthening surveillance and appropriate public health measures. “Currently, the number of such Delta Plus variants in India are only few but the distribution or detection in various states during past two + months indicate that [it] is already present in some states and [they] may need to enhance their public health response by focusing on surveillance, enhanced testing, quick contact-tracing and priority vaccination,” the official statement added.
On Tuesday, the Union ministry of health and family welfare, in a statement, called Delta Plus a “variant of concern” (VoC). The ministry cited an analysis by a consortium of genomic sequencing labs that purportedly found the mutated virus to spread more readily. Addressing a press conference earlier that day, Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan had called Delta Plus a “variant of interest” (VoI), implying that it is being studied.
This comes after India achieved the highest single-day vaccination against coronavirus on Monday with 8.6 million vaccine doses administered across all states and Union territories. Speaking to the media, Bhushan on Tuesday said that the achievement was “not sudden” but a result of “coordinated planning”.
Maharashtra on Tuesday reported 8,473 new Covid-19 cases, over 2,000 more than Monday, state health bulletin data showed. Following this, the overall tally of the state climbed up to 5,987,521, the bulletin added.
Meanwhile, India on Wednesday reported a surge in daily caseload with 50,848 new cases in the last 24 hours, up from 42,640 cases on the preceding day. Tuesday’s daily case count was the lowest since March 30 when 40,953 fresh cases were reported.
