Delta Variant: Beware of Changing Symptoms

As the Coronavirus mutating itself the symptoms of COVID-19 too are appearing differently. Scientists have discovered that there is a shift in symptom manifestation between the first phase and current phase of the COVID pandemic. What are the new symptoms that we have to be aware of?

Although a number of COVID cases have come down, Virus is still mutating and COVID Appropriate behavior is still the need of the hour. The Third wave is waiting to make a fall if people don’t follow the routine of the mask, hand sanitization, and social distancing.

One variant in Britain, another variant in South Africa, one more variant in India. This is how the Coronavirus is changing rapidly its structure and causing varied symptoms in the patients. The Delta variant is causing very few symptoms but appearing more and more lethal.

Why mutations?

The world is entangled in the grip of COVID for the past 18 months. Since then it is modifying itself. In the beginning, fever, common cold, and headache were seen as important symptoms of this virus. But now these are changing. The speed of virus spread, the manner of spreading has a big impact on health. Different levels of immunity are also a factor.

Symptoms of Delta variant:

Delta variant is widespread in Britain. The health department has arranged a self-reporting system to compile symptoms among the people due to the Delta variant. Till now common cold was thought to be an important symptom of COVID. Running nose was not a common symptom. But now, in the Delta variant Running nose and throat pain are visible. Still one has to reassess the results. Due to new variants among the virus, it may affect the efficacy of vaccines.Some vaccines may not effectively contain the new virus variants. Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines may be effective in variants too. The data collected henceforth will be able to unravel the secrets of containing any virus with any number of mutations.

As the Delta variant is identified in nearly 100 countries including India, we need to know which vaccines are suitable to fight against the Delta variant. Many organization released their report, in which they had confirmed that vaccines work well to cure this Indian- born variant.

Covishield & Covaxin

Results from two studies of blood serum from people who had received Covaxin suggest that the vaccine generates antibodies that effectively neutralize the B.1.1.7 (Alpha) and B.1.617 (Delta) variants of SARS-CoV-2, first identified in the United Kingdom and India, respectively,” NIH said.

ICMR study evaluated immune response in sera of the Covishield vaccinated individuals belonging to categories- one dose vaccinated, two doses vaccinated

Researchers at La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI) is now studying a much larger group of 12 different Variants of Concern (VOCs) and Variants of Interest (VOIs), including the Delta variant (B.1.617.2), Eta (B.1.525), Iota (B.1.526), Kappa (B.1.617.1), Lambda (C37) and the variants B.1.526.1, B.1.617.3, R1 and B.1.1.519. Researchers say they would also like to study T cells from people who have been infected with the variants and see how those T cells react to the ancestral strain of the virus.