NEW DELHI: For the first time, ‘triple mutant variant’ is a new variant of the Covid-19 virus that has been uncovered in the country. Experts say this variant is more infectious and is spreading rapidly. It is predominantly circulating in West Bengal. Therefore, this variant also being referred to as the ‘Bengal strain’ of Covid-19 is reportedly more infectious than other strains.
The ‘triple mutant variant’ is the second lineage of SARS-CoV-2 virus to be identified in India. It is being called ‘B.1.618’ and is mostly circulating in West Bengal as of now.
As covid-19 transmission in India is surging at a rate unseen anywhere in the world so far. On Thursday, the country reported 3.14 lakh new cases, the highest single-day count for any country ever, and deaths too are mounting every hour.
Explaining the new strain, Vinod Scaria, a researcher at the New Delhi-based Council of Scientific and Industrial Research’s Institute of Genomic and Integrative Biology (CSIR-IGIB), in a Twitter he said that the earliest sequence of this variant was isolated on October 25 last year in samples collected from a patient in West Bengal.