The new virus sub-variants
- An average 15,277 new Covid-19 cases have been recorded every day.
- The surge has been driven by sub-variants of Omicron.
What are these sub-variants?
- Current surge due to BA.2 sub-variant of Omicron along with BA.1 - and BA.2.38.
- BA.5: Led to an increase in cases in South Africa a couple of months ago.
What do we know
- BA 2.38: Milder disease, just like its parent sub-variant BA.2.
- BA.2: Drove the winter surge in India, along with BA.1. BA2 soon overtook its cousin
- BA.4 & BA.5: Detected in South Africa, triggered a surge of infections.
- Both have around 13% to 15% transmission advantage over BA2, and can also circumvent some of the immunity.
- Variants do not lead to an increase in severe disease, hospitalisation, and deaths.
- BA2.12.1: First detected in New York, is thought to be 23% to 27% more transmissible than the BA2 sub-variant.
How much has each sub-variant contributed to the current surge?
- BA.238 : 30% of all sequences over the last 30 days globally.
- BA 2 sub-variant: 28% of samples globally
- BA.4 and BA.5: 7% of the sequences uploaded to the global database.
India’s Case
- BA.5: 120 sequences mostly in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka
- BA.2.12.1: 5% of sequences over the last 30 days.
जनवरी की लहर और वर्तमान लहर के बीच क्या बदल गया है?
- किसी भी उभरते हुए सब-वेरिएंट के साथ कोई क्लस्टर गठन नहीं।
- पहले स्पष्ट क्लस्टर गठन था, जिसने शोधकर्ताओं को उन बिंदुओं को जल्दी से जोड़ने में मदद की कि वृद्धि नए संस्करण द्वारा संचालित थी।