BA 12 variant detected in Bihar, said to cause 10-times worse Covid

Bihar health authorities have detected a case of the new Omicron Covid-19 variant, BA 2.12, which is said to be 10 times more dangerous than the BA 2 variant, in a Patna hospital.

The Health Department of Bihar government said they have found the BA 2.12 variant in a person at Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (IGIMS) in Patna on Thursday.

The BA.2.12 variant, whose first discovery is registered in the United States, has been detected in five people so far in India.

Professor Dr Namrata Kumari, the HOD of microbiology department of IGIMS, said: “Keeping in view the rising Covid cases, we had started genome sequencing of samples of Omicron variant of Corona. There were 13 samples tested and one of them had BA.12 strains. The remaining 12 samples have BA.2 strains.”

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“We have asked the authority for contact tracing of all the positive samples of Omicron. The BA.12 variant is 10 times more dangerous than BA.2. Though, there is no need to worry. Precaution is required here to protect from it,” she said.

The BA 2.12 variant was first detected in a person in Delhi, and has also been found in Kolkata.

Genome sequencing, which was stopped two months back, in view of the few Covid cases being found in the country, has been restarted. Several hospitals across the country are conducting tests on patients.