Covid-19: What is the ‘double mutant’ variant that has set off alarm bells?

People wearing protective masks crowd a marketplace amidst the spread of Covid-19 in Mumbai. Credit: Reuters Photo

As India struggles to contain the raging second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, the country on Wednesday reported a new variant of the virus.

Setting off alarm bells, the variant, being called the ‘double mutant’, has been found in over 200 samples in Maharashtra, the hardest-hit state by the second wave.

Read | Novel variant with double mutation spotted in Maharashtra

The Union Health Ministry on Wednesday said the new "double mutant" variant of the SARS-CoV-2 was detected in Delhi, Maharashtra and some other places in addition to the three variants of concern (VOC) -- first noticed in the UK, South Africa and Brazil -- that have been found in at least 18 states and Union Territories.

As per epidemiologists, "double mutant" refers to an entirely new variant that has the characteristics of two already identified variants.

"Double mutant is not a scientific term. It is just another mutant which seems to be unique to India," Ramanan Laxminarayan, founder of the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy in New Delhi told Reuters.

Read: India records highest single-day spike in 2021 with 53,476 fresh Covid-19 cases

About 20% of the samples that contained the new variant in Maharashtra were found in Nagpur, the director of the National Centre for Disease Control, Sujeet Kumar Singh, told a news conference. He added that nine such samples were also found in New Delhi which has seen a spike in infections over the last few weeks.

As for vaccines, ‘Covishield’ developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University by the Serum Institute of India and the homegrown ‘Covaxin’ from Bharat Biotech are effective against the variants of the virus first identified in Britain and Brazil.

Read: AstraZeneca says vaccine 76% effective in updated US trial data

Cause for concern?

Laxminarayan stated that so far there was no reason to be worried about this new variant. “We have no evidence (yet) that these variants are more transmissible or more lethal than what we already have," he added.

NCDC’s Singh, on the other hand, said that the variant is evolving.

CORONAVIRUS SPECIAL COVERAGE ONLY ON DH

"Though VOCs and a new double mutant variant have been found in India, these have not been detected in numbers sufficient to either establish or direct relationship or explain the rapid increase in cases in some states," the Union Health Ministry had said.

(With agency inputs)

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