New COVID variants in India: How dangerous they are and what govt says

India’s active COVID-19 caseload currently stands at 25,510 with 2,141 new cases recorded in the last 24 hours, the Union health ministry said on Thursday (October 20). However, with the emergence of new Omicron variants, there are concerns and the Union government has stepped up surveillance ahead of Diwali.

Due to new Omicron variants, many countries are witnessing a steep rise in cases. The Centre has stressed on monitoring the points of entries due to new Covid variants.

On Tuesday, Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare, Dr. Mansukh Mandaviya chaired a meeting with public health experts and officials to review the pandemic situation in the country, status of vaccination drive and the global scenario of new variants of Covid.

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The minister stressed on the need to undertake adequate testing (with higher proportion of RTPCR) & effective Covid-19 surveillance to assess and control the spread of infection in a timely manner.

He directed the officials to continue to focus on surveillance across the country, particularly through sentinel sites including monitoring of SARI (Severe acute respiratory infections) & ILI (Influenza-like illness) cases and on Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) to scan for any possible mutation in the wake of identification of Omicron variants in other countries.

He also highlighted the need for community awareness for continued implementation of the Covid Appropriate Behaviour (CAB), especially in view of the upcoming festival season.

The Maharashtra health department has cautioned that the Covid cases could rise especially during winter and the festive season, citing new Covid variants like BA.2.3.20 and BQ.1 reported from the state.

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These new Covid variants have been detected for the first time in the country, it said.

‘Most antibody-evasive strain’

It also said that the new Covid variant XBB has a growth advantage over BA.2.75 and has immune evasive property.

“Some experts are predicting a rise in the coming winter season especially in the festive environment. In WGS (whole genome sequencing), the proportion of BA.2.75 has decreased to 76 per cent from 95 per cent,” the state government’s health bulletin said.

“The state has reported XBB which is a new variant having growth advantage over BA.2.75 and immune evasive property. Apart from this, the state has reported BA.2.3.20 and BQ.1 variant first time in India,” it said.

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According to Yunlong Richard Cao, Assistant Professor at Biomedical Pioneering Innovation Center, Peking University, Beijing, China, “XBB is currently the most antibody-evasive strain tested, and BR.2, BM.1.1.1, CA.1 are more immune evasive than BA.2.75.2 and BQ.1.1.”

A report in Washington Post said that new Covid variant XBB appears to be the best at evading immunity. Researchers in China have found that XBB can elude the protective antibodies generated by a breakthrough BA.5 infection, raising concern that fall boosters engineered to target the BA.4 and BA.5 versions of omicron may be quickly outpaced. Still, those booster shots remain the best tool on the shelf.

‘Lower risk’

Recently, Singapore said it is watching the XBB strain “very closely”, but there is no evidence that the new sub-variant is leading to more severe outcomes.

“XBB is demonstrating characteristics that it is dominating over all other sub-variants. It has been detected in many parts of the world but in Singapore is rising very fast – within three weeks from nothing, it is now over half of all the daily cases,” Singapore Health Minister Ong Ye Kung said.

“But so far, what is good is that there’s no evidence that it leads to more severe outcomes,” Channel News Asia quoted the minister as saying.

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“There is no evidence showing that XBB causes more severe illness. So please beware of falsehoods that are circulating,” he said in a Facebook post.

On the new Covid variant, the Singapore government said, “There has been no evidence of XBB subvariant causing more severe illness than previous variants. In fact, our local data in the last two weeks shows that XBB cases are estimated to have a 30% lower risk of hospitalisation compared to Omicron BA.5 variant cases. No increases in COVID-19 deaths have been observed over the past month.”

(With agency inputs)