As some cities in India witnessed an uptick in the Covid-19 cases tally, Dr Gagandeep Kang, a noted microbiologist and Professor at Christian Medical College in Vellore on Friday said terming the surge as the fourth wave of coronavirus pandemic in the country would be a “stretch”.
“Saying so would be a stretch,” Dr Kang told NDTV but cautioned against dropping the guard and said that people should be prepared for reinfections, irrespective of the previous infections or vaccination.
The recent surge in cases of virus infection in Delhi and its neighbouring state Haryana has sparked concerns over the possibility of a fresh Covid wave. Covid-19 positivity rate in Delhi has jumped from 0.5 per cent to 2.7 per cent in a week with 325 fresh cases on Thursday. While Haryana has reported over 1,200 fresh Covid cases in over 14 days out of which over 1,000 infections were from Gurugram district alone.
Dr Kang said it is unclear whether the surge is due to the XE variant. “We don’t necessarily know that all of the cases that are being reported are of the XE variant unless we sequence them all,” she told NDTV.
Dr Kang had last week said the new XE variant is not a matter of concern as it is not likely to cause any more severity than other sub-variants of Omicron (BA.1 and BA.2). “Variants will come because people are travelling. Of what we know of the variant (XE) is that it is not a point of concern,” Kang said. “We were worried about BA.2 but it did not cause more serious disease than BA.1. XE does not cause more serious disease than BA.1 or BA.2,” she had said.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has issued a warning against XE after it was first detected in the UK. It has been suggested that it could be more transmissible than any Covid-19 strain so far. XE variant is a combination, or recombinant, of both sub-variants (BA.1 and BA.2) of Omicron.
‘Best Time To Get Covid’
The daily Covid-19 cases in Delhi have been on the rise over the last few days with some cases of school children testing positive in the National Capital Region (NCR). Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has said the Delhi government is keeping an eye on the pandemic situation and there is no need to panic since hospitalizations are low. The Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) will hold a meeting on April 20 to discuss measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus in the national capital. Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain said all hospitals in the city have been advised to remain alert given the rise in coronavirus cases.
Amid alarm over cases of Covid-19 infections in school children, Dr Kang said parents should not be concerned as healthy kids getting the Covid infection during childhood is the “best” time. “I think if you have to get a Covid infection the best time to get it is when you are a healthy child,” she was quoted as saying by NDTV. She added that sero-surveys indicate that 80 per cent of children have already been infected and protection from the infection should not be expected. “As the virus evolves, it is going to continue to evolve in ways that allow it to infect us again and again and again,” she said.
Dr Kang, however, said that instead of the focus on the number of cases of mild infections, parents should be looking at data on those kids who would need hospitalisation, adding that the numbers for severe cases are very very few.
Meanwhile, India opened up vaccination for the 15-18 years age group on January 3. The cumulative vaccine doses administered in the country have exceeded 186.30 crore. The country began administering the precaution doses of the vaccines to all the beneficiaries aged above 18 years at private vaccination centres on Sunday.
XE Variant Cases in India?
A few days back, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said it has detected the first case of XE infection in Mumbai. However, the Union Health Ministry said that the sample which is being said to be the XE variant was analysed in detail by genome experts of the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG), who have inferred that the genomic constitution of this variant does not correlate with the genomic constitution of XE variant.
Later, Gujarat reported its first case of the XE variant after a man from Mumbai tested positive for Covid-19 during his visit to Vadodara. The genomic analysis of the XE variant sample from Gujarat is still underway and results are expected soon, a Union health ministry official said on April 9.
(With inputs from PTI)
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