"Current Covid variants in India transmissible but not severe": Dr Arjun Dang
Amid rising sample requests in the wake of a fresh infection wave, Dr Arjun Dang, CEO of Dr Dangs Lab, said the laboratory is witnessing a surge in testing.
Speaking to ANI, Dr Dang stated that the number of samples has increased, "There has been an increase in the number of sample requests that we are receiving. But this time, we are better prepared, more informed, and we have better surveillance tools. With the scientific tests that we have, we are in a good place from the preparedness perspective to face this effectively and minimise any kind of damage that the current wave might cause."
He further said the circulating variants are subvariants of Omicron showing mild symptoms, "We must understand that the current spreading variants are again a sublineage of the Omicron virus. Additionally, in states like Tamil Nadu and Gujarat, we have certain other sub-variants as well that have been named as Variants Under Monitoring, and these are basically of two types, that is, LF7 and NV.1.8.1. Currently, the cases that we are seeing are more transmissible. They can infect people easily, but again, from the severity perspective, till now, we have not seen any severe cases."
"All of these are actually presenting as common cold and flu, and the usual symptoms that we have in any kind of common cold, even the hospitalisations, have been minimal," Dang said.
Dr Arjun also said that majorly since few days testing has been increased, "I think, may this month had started on a very low note with minimal cases, but I think in the past five to seven days is when we've seen a major uptake and now we are getting significantly high cases to test on a daily basis."
Recently, in an Exclusive interview with ANI, Dr Rajiv Bahl, DG, ICMR, said the government is focusing on transmission, surveillance, and preparedness, but currently circulating variants have mild symptoms like Omicron.
"The government and health agencies are closely monitoring COVID-19 cases and taking necessary steps. Currently, the number of active cases is low, and most cases are limited to southern and western India. The government is focusing on three key factors. The rate of transmission and the rapidly increasing cases. Whether the virus is evading our natural and vaccine-induced immunity. Whether the current infections are more severe than before or have mild symptoms like Omicron."
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