Strategy to contain new Covid strain - there is no need to change the existing treatment protocol in view of mutations emerging in the strain

MP | 26 Dec 20 | New Delhi: Gearing up to deal with the new strain of Covid-19, the National Task Force on Covid-19 has suggested testing 5 per cent of the positive cases from all states/UTs for whole genome sequencing (WGS) as a prospective surveillance to detect the presence of new Covid-19 strain in the country. 

The task force has also suggested adopting a community surveillance mechanism to detect the presence of new strain. 

Under the community surveillance mechanism, the list of all UK arrivals during the last 28 days has been shared by Bureau of Immigration with the concerned states and all passengers who had arrived from the UK between November 25 to December 20 are being tracked by the IDSP state surveillance units (SSUs) and district surveillance units (DSUs). 

The meeting of the national task force was held on Saturday wherein it was discussed the evidence-based modifications in testing, treatment and surveillance strategies for SARS-CoV-2. 

During the meeting, it was decided that there is no need to change the existing treatment protocol in view of mutations emerging in the strain and the current testing strategy would also continue as it's relevant in detecting the infected cases of new Covid-19 strain. 

The task force has further recommended that in addition to the existing surveillance strategies, it is critical to conduct enhanced genomic surveillance for SARS-CoV-2 especially in incoming passengers from the UK. 

The task force has also proposed to continue enhanced genomic surveillance for early detection and containment of the UK variant SARS-CoV-2 strains. 

However, it observed that like all other RNA viruses, SARS-CoV-2 will continue to mutate and the mutated virus can also be contained by measures like social distancing, hand hygiene, wearing masks and by an effective vaccine. 

At the meeting, which was attended by Niti Aayog member Vinod Paul, ICMR DG Balram Bhargava, AIIMS director Randeep Guleria, etc, it was also declared that the variant strain has 14 non-synonymous mutations, six synonymous and three deletions. 

However, the task force found that since the UK variant strain is implicated to cause increased transmissibility of the virus, it is critical to identify individuals infected with this strain and adequately contain them to prevent its transmission in India. 

As a preventive strategy adopted to contain the spread of new Covid-19 strain in the country, all passengers who had arrived from UK from December 21 -December 23 have been tested at the airports and only passengers having after negative RT-PCR test results are permitted to exit the airports. 

"All positively tested passengers have been put under institutional isolation and their samples sent for WGS. Only after the confirmation of the non-mutant variant upon WGS result, the positive cases are permitted to leave institutional isolation as per the existing management protocol," the health ministry stated in its release.

(http://www.millenniumpost.in/nation/strategy-to-contain-new-covid-strain-427605)