New Delhi: There is no need to worry over Deltacron, the new Covid-19 strain found in Cyprus, as a huge number of our population has partially been vaccinated, said Dr Vinay K Agarwal renowned health expert and member of Indian Medical Association (IMA) to ETV Bharat.
“Although it will be too early to predict, we have to adopt the same precaution of Covid appropriate behaviour and social distancing,” Dr Agarwal said.
He, however, said that the lethality of Deltacron may be different. “Delta was much more severe whereas Omicron is much more infectious,” he said.
It may be mentioned here that a researcher in Cyprus has reportedly discovered a strain of the coronavirus that combines the Delta and Omicron variant and has been nicknamed as Deltacron.
Emerging states of concern
A senior official in the health ministry told ETV Bharat that representatives from Maharashtra, West Bengal, Delhi, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Jharkhand and Gujarat were present in the video conferencing as these states have been identified as “Emerging States of concern.”
The health secretary has suggested all the State representatives upgrade their health infrastructure apart from imposing local restrictions “if required.”
“The health secretary has assured all States of providing all central assistance whenever required,” the official said. All these eight states have been witnessing an increase in weekly positivity as well as weekly cases.
Also read: New Covid variant 'Deltacron' emerges in Cyprus: Here is what we know so far
Amid the Omicron scare, the reported Deltacron variant of SARS-CoV triggered fresh apprehension. As many as 25 detected Detlacron cases have already been sent to GISAID, the international database that tracks changes in the virus.
It may be noted that Deltacron is not an official name given by the World Health Organization (WHO). Earlier, the word Delmicron became popular to denote a combination of Delta and Omicron. Neither of these variants have officially been acknowledged by the WHO. Deltacron has already created a huge debate in the social media platform with several experts pointing it as not being a public health concern.
In the recent past, apart from Omicron, the new variant which has been reported is IHU. Both Omicron and IHU were first identified in November. While Omicron went on to become the predominant variant, IHU remained limited. A study has found that the ‘IHU’ variant of Covid-19 which was discovered in France is not spreading far enough to be a major concern.
The study published in MedRxiv is yet to be peer-reviewed. Researchers said that it is still early to speculate on the IHU variants as the number of cases is extremely low.
When contacted, Dr Tamorish Kole, president of the Asian Society of Emergency Medicine echoed the same and said that Deltacron is not yet acknowledged by WHO. “This may not be a public health concern at present following the fact that there is not much prevalence of Deltacron,” said Dr Kole.
When asked whether there is any possibility that any other variant can appear to be a dominant variant, Dr Kole said, “Earlier Delta was a dominant variant. But subsequently, Omicron is dominant over Delta. So, we have to be very careful over the developing scenario.” Meanwhile, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bushan on Tuesday reviewed the Covid-19 situation in maximum Covid caseload states.
Also read: PM Modi likely to hold meeting with CMs on Covid situation on Thursday
