worried about the new coronavirus As strains like Delta and Alpha have so far afflicted 328 people in Jharkhand in recent days, the state government ordered samples of patients for genetic studies to be sent within 48 hours of their deaths, a top official said on Tuesday. A top official said on Tuesday. Battling the deadly second wave of COVID-19 that has claimed 5,100 lives in tribal-dominated Jharkhand, the state government is worried as these types like Delta, Alpha and Kappa are said to be more permeable.
“During the whole genomic sequencing, 328 out of 364 samples in the state have tested positive for variants like delta, alpha and kappa,” state health secretary Arun Kumar Singh told PTI. The state is committed to take all necessary. Take steps to prevent the spread of the virus to protect your citizens by adopting evidence-based prevention measures, the Health Secretary said.
Whole genomic sequencing (WGS) is a laboratory procedure used to determine the complete DNA sequence of a person’s approximately 3 billion nucleotides, including non-coding sequences that characterize mutations and drive disease outbreaks. Helpful in tracking. Singh said that out of 328 positive cases, 194 cases are of delta version B.1.617.2 which is kind of a concern.
The World Health Organization said a variant could be called “of concern” if it was more infectious, more lethal, or more resistant to current vaccines and treatments. “This version is significantly more permeable and somewhat resistant,” the official said.
The health secretary said that twenty-nine cases were found to be of the B.1.617.1 version, which is named as Kappa, in addition, 29 cases are of the B.1.1.7 alpha version, he said. The alpha version is also a “concern” because it spreads more quickly than the original strain.
Apart from these, some other forms of coronavirus have also been detected in the state, Singh said. Maximum 145 cases have been detected from Jamshedpur and 56 from state capital Ranchi. Both the districts have seen a large number of COVID-19 cases and deaths.
He said that Dhanbad has 49 cases, Hazaribagh 48 and Palamu 30. “For identification of virus strains prevalent in the community, the state has sent 364 positive archived RT-PCR samples to the Regional Genome Sequencing Laboratory (RGSL), Institute of Life Sciences (ILS) Bhubaneswar for WGS,” said state chief epidemiologist Dr. . Praveen Kumar Karn told PTI.
The samples were sent from Ranchi Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS), IRL, Itki Ranchi, District Palamu Medical College and Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Medical College, Jamshedpur, which have been identified as sentinel surveillance sites. “This sequence will help in better planning for the future and alert the health department to plan for better management of patients,” said Dr. Karn.
A total of 537 samples were sent to ILS Bhubaneswar for WGS between March and April 2021, of which 364 were processed.
In a letter to the heads of sentinel surveillance sites, the health secretary mentioned, “All laboratories are directed to obtain SRF IDs of death cases from the district administration and send the respective samples to WGS within 48 hours. “Therefore samples of all those patients who have died on or after 1st April 2021 will mandatorily be sent to ILS, Bhubaneswar for WGS. Therefore, all the identified sentinel sites are directed to follow all the activities to combat this major outbreak of COVID-19.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Hemant Soren said that despite the recovery rate of more than 98 per cent in the state, the danger is not averted. “According to experts, the third wave may trouble us in six to eight weeks and the state government has made preparations for it but it will not be possible without the cooperation of the people,” he said.
Jharkhand has recorded 1,489 active coronavirus cases, while the death toll has reached 5,100. New coronavirus cases were recorded at 122, taking the caseload to 3,44,665.
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