India has detected four cases of the South African strain of the COVID-19 virus, officials said on Tuesday. The country has also detected the Brazilian strain of the virus, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) Director General Balram Bhargava said.
Addressing the regular Covid-19 media briefing, Dr Bhargava said that the infected people and their contacts have been quarantined.
ICMR has found a total of 192 Covid-19 cases of the new variants of mutated SARS-CoV-2 in last two months, including four from the variant emerging in South Africa and one from the Brazilian variant.
The remaining cases are all of the UK variant. "All confirmed cases are quarantined and treated," Dr Balram Bhargava said.
ICMR chief however noted that no mortality has been reported so far in the cases who contracted the UK variant as well as those who are infected by the variants from South Africa and Brazil.
About the SA variant, better known as B.1.351, Bharagava said that its cases were reported in January in four returnees from African countries.
"One case was found in a person who returned from Angola, one from Tanzania and rest from persons who returned from South Africa," he said.
Bhargava added that that this variant has spread to 44 countries and the National Institute of Virology, Pune is attempting to isolate and culture the variant.
"The efficacy of vaccines on it will be known after the isolation and culture of the variant," he said.
Meanwhile, the Brazilian variant or P.1 lineage, has been found in the first week of February in a person who returned from the South American country recently. The strain has spread to 15 countries, however, it has been successfully isolated and cultured at the NIV in India, it added.
"The experiments are underway to assess the efficacy of vaccines on the Brazilian variant," Bhargava said.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the new strains are more contagious and spread faster, and vaccines could be less effective on these patients.
