PUNE: Many of the Covid patients infected with the Delta-plus variant in Maharashtra did not have severe illness and went on to recover completely, state disease surveillance officer Pradeep Awate said on Tuesday.
Studies are going on to determine if the new variant is more transmissible and virulent, but Dr Awate said a preliminary analysis of the 21 cases in the state shows most of them did not develop severe Covid and were able to recover.
The 21 Delta-plus cases were found among 7,500 samples the state had collected for sequencing.
“The disease in these 21 cases was not that severe.
Many of these cases have competed their 14-day recovery period.
Their samples were sent for genome sequencing around May-end,” Awate said.
He said the emergence of a variant should not cause panic and the precautions like masking and sanitizing remain the same.
Awate said, “When a variant is detected, the precautions people have to adopt are the same — masking, sanitizing and social distancing.
The study of a variant is, however, of relevance to the administration, which may have to make suitable policy decisions for its containment and to test vaccine efficacy further.” Awate added that so far there had been no evidence to show the Delta-plus variant was more virulent.
The health department is now focusing on identifying breakthrough infections (Covid after vaccination) in regions that have reported new variants, like Delta-plus.
Tracking breakthroughs is key as some reports recently indicated that the Delta variant showed signs of vaccine resistance.
“The information on breakthrough cases is being compiled, with deeper analysis of infections with newer variants,” Dr Awate said.
The breakthrough investigation is one part of the surveillance the state has launched to track variants.
State health minister Rajesh Tope said Maharashtra would now collect information on index patients infected by Delta-plus.
He said state will check if they were re-infected and a detailed report would be sent to ICMR and the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) for analysis.
“We don’t know yet if the Delta variants are bypassing the current vaccines.
Studies are on,” Tope said.