Haryana: 1st Delta plus variant reported in Faridabad, Anil Vij says the state is prepared

With the emergence of the COVID Delta variant in India, states are preparing themselves to curb the transmission and facilitate required treatment aids. Concerning the first case of the COVID Delta plus variant reported in Faridabad, Haryana Health Minister Anil Vij said that the state government is prepared to combat the virus spread. 

As of June 13, a total of 158 COVID Delta variant was reported in Haryana. 

Centre's order to Haryana

In the wake of a sample testing positive for the Delta plus variant, the Centre has asked the Haryana government to test COVID positive patients for the Delta plus variant of the virus. 

Rajesh Bhushan, Secretary, Department of Health and Family Welfare, has informed the State Secretary in Chief, “Ensure that adequate samples of positive persons are sent to the designated laboratories of INACOG, a consortium of laboratories for whole-genome sequencing in the context of the Covid pandemic so that the clinical epidemiological correlations can be established". 

Delta plus variant cases in other states

On June 25, the Union Ministry released data, that read, across the country 48 cases of Delta Plus variant have been detected in 10 states, from 45,000 samples sequenced. Maximum cases have been detected in Maharashtra (20) followed by Tamil Nadu (9), Madhya Pradesh (7), Kerala (3) and two each from Punjab and Gujarat. 

What is Delta plus variant?

COVID Delta plus variant is a new mutant strain of the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2. This mutation can lead to clustering of infections, increased transmissibility, increased severity of infections and improved binding of the virus to lung cells. Some of the symptoms observed in the reported cases were fever, headaches, sore throats, and runny noses.

According to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoH&FW), both Indian approved COVID vaccines, Covishield and COVAXIN function against SARS-CoV-2 variants including Delta (B.1.617.2) whereas, for Delta Plus (AY.1), the laboratory tests are under experimentation to check vaccine efficacy”.

Recently the World Health Organisation (WHO) has suggested that people must continue to follow COVID-19 prevention protocol like wearing masks, sanitising hands regularly, maintaining social distancing even after receiving the jab. As more fresh variants are expected to emerge as it is the nature of the virus to evolve periodically. 

WHO has said that the transmission rate of COVID variants is very high among unvaccinated people. 

(Image credit: PTI)