New Omicron variants are not causing case spike or mortality: Govt

The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has initiated random testing of international travelers arriving at various Airports from December 24, 2022

The Union Health Ministry on Monday said that genomic sequencing of samples from sentinel sites showed that all the Omicron variants and its sub-lineages are present in India, but there has been neither any rise in mortality nor rise in transmission in the areas where these variants were detected.

Between December 29 and January 7 Integrated Disease Surveillance Program (IDSP) sentinel sites referred 324 Covid-19 positive samples for sequencing to 22 INSACOG labs.

“Sentinel sequencing of these positive samples lifted from the community revealed presence of all the omicron variants like BA.2 and its sub-lineages including BA.2.75, XBB (37), BQ.1& BQ.1.1 (5), etc.  No mortality or rise in transmission was reported in the areas where these variants were detected,” the Union health ministry said.

The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has initiated random testing of international travellers arriving at various Airports from December 24, 2022, it added.

Since then, 1357243 International passengers arrived in India from 7786 flights at various airports out of which 29,113 randomly selected passengers were tested by RT-PCR.

A total of 183 samples were found positive which were subsequently sent for whole genome sequencing to 13 INSACOG labs. “Sequencing of 50 samples revealed omicron and omicron sub-lineages including recombinant variants. XBB (11), BQ.1.1 (12) and BF7.4.1 (1) were the main variants detected in these samples of international passengers,” the release added.

The Centre said it is keeping a close watch on the Covid-19 situation in various States through the IDSP network, particularly on the transmission and hospitalization trends. 

Already experts have said there is no need for alarm as Omicron sub-lineages like Kraken are causing a spike in cases elsewhere in the world.

The Kraken variant – nickname for the XBB.1.5 SarsCoV-2 variant – is now picking up pace across the globe and has already been detected in 29 countries. While the World Health Organisation (WHO) has expressed concern about this particular fast-spreading variant, experts in India see no reason for alarm yet.

JP Muliyil, epidemiologist at CMC Vellore and member of the working group of the National Technical Advisory Group (NTAGI) said: “Truly there is no way we can guess about severity from communicability. For that we need to see information on hospitalisation and case fatality. At present, the information suggests that this Omicron is very similar to previous ones in severity. Do stay calm.”

The XBB.1.5 variant is a cross between BA.2.75 and BA.2.10.1. It is a descendant of the Omicron XBB variant.

Shahid Jameel, a senior research fellow at Green Templeton College at Oxford University says the XBB.1.5 will spread more than its predecessor. “It’s already become the dominant variant in the USA - from 4 percent to 40 percent in a short period of time. It’s still Omicron so nothing changes in terms of severity in vaccinated and hybrid immune populations.”