No new COVID variants Mu, South African C.1.2 reported in India so far, says INSACOG

As of now, India has not detected a single case of the new COVID-19 variants Mu, South African C.1.2, but the country’s genomic surveillance consortium has asked for more robust implementation of the existing recommendations on sequencing of positive samples from international travellers. According to the weekly bulletin of the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG), the Delta and Delta sub-lineages are still the dominating variants or VOC (variants of concern) in the country. AY.4 is the most commonly detected sub-lineage of the Delta variant sequenced from India or other countries. According to the data by INSACOG, 63,774 samples were sequenced, out of which 42,833 were Delta.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) recently added B.1.621 (including B.1.621.1) to the list of Variants of Interest on August 30 and gave it the designation of “Mu”. This means that research has shown that the mutations have potential immune escape properties. As seen with the Beta variant, the mutations could make it difficult for the vaccines to have a neutralization effect on the population. However, there is not enough evidence to dictate the next steps. WHO recently also added C.1.2 as a new VOI, which is a sub-lineage of the C.1 variant first detected in South Africa. Even though it did not spread globally, there are concerns that the variant might have developed multiple mutations in a very short time. The evidence suggests that the mutations contain all the aforementioned three types of mutations, which accelerated transmissibility and immune escape.

The INSACOG online data portal has also included sub-lineage labels up to AY.12, which will help better track the sub-lineages. However, after recent developments, the classification has been upgraded until AY.25. Every lineage from AY.13-AY.25 is clustered at a specific geographical location, and more subdivisions were created to make it easier to track the viruses. It is to be noted that the nomenclature does not change their biological functioning. The INSACOG is a scientific agency that conducts research and genomic surveillance of coronavirus across the country. It is responsible for quickly detecting a new variant or a sub-lineage to stop the spread to another location or a country.

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