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Weekly announcements from INSACOG, a consortium of India’s smartest labs, providing information on Sars-Cov-2 strains circulating in the country have been delayed for several months, and experts warn that such a delay could mean that the actual scenario of the Covid-19 outbreak in the soil would not be as it should be reported.
INSACOG’s most recent newsletter, which was published in mid-October, was the organization’s first on the Omicron XBB subline. It occurred at least 3 weeks after the sublineage was first detected in the country, and it was also almost a month old.
A week earlier, six ads, from July 18 to September 12, had aired a week earlier. This is despite the fact that the bulletin, announced by the government, would be published weekly.
INSACOG also classifies it as a “weekly bulletin”.
The bulletin updated before that came out on July 11, highlighting the huge gap between data shared by the government and the truth on the ground in terms of Sars-CoV-2 variants recently circulating in India, such as this RNA virus. mutates at a faster rate. .
The delay in updating the database is due in part to the global spread of the XBB variant, an evasive immunovariant known in more than 25 countries, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported last Wednesday. XBB, a mix of Omicron The BA. 2. 75 and BJ. 1 subvariants were first detected in Singapore in August and have since been guilty of a sharp rise in Covid cases there.
While technical knowledge is uploaded to the portal for the “benefit of researchers and academics,” it would not be imaginable for laypeople to analyze it, officials said.
Significantly, the spread of immunoinvasive variants comes at a time when Covid restrictions and mask mandates have largely been removed around the world thanks to global vaccination coverage.
Several government ministries and departments are involved in the control of INSACOG; however, according to others familiar with the matter, it is the Ministry of Health of the Union that will have to give the last green word to what is made public.
“INSACOG religiously publishes a bulletin each and every week, in accordance with its mandate, and sends it to the appropriate authorities. There is no delay in the appearance of the laboratories or the consortium,” said a consortium member, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG), jointly presented through the Union Ministry of Health and the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) with the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and the Indian Medical Research Council (ICMR), is a consortium of 54 laboratories to monitor genomic diversifications in Sars-CoV-2.
Data from genome sequencing laboratories are analyzed according to trends in picture knowledge to investigate links between genomic variants and epidemiological trends.
According to senior government officials familiar with the matter, the Ministry of Health refrains from publishing knowledge in the public domain for fear of sowing panic among the masses.
“There were cases in the afterlife where parts of the bulletin were controversial, forcing the Ministry of Public Health to make the decision to verify the data before approving its public domain so that laymen can better understand,” said a senior government official, who requested anonymity. .
The Ministry of Health responded to mailed questions about the matter up to the time of publication.
Experts have warned that since scientists are faced with a virus that can adjust its characteristics on a weekly basis, it is vital to stay one step ahead of any imaginable outbreak.
“It’s an RNA virus; therefore, it will mutate at a faster rate. Regular updates will let you know which strain is circulating and which is gaining ground; However, the concern of creating panic among the masses, for me, is unfounded. The panic is believed to be the result of increased numbers of hospitalizations and deaths,” said a public fitness expert, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Another segment of experts said virulence is measured through disease severity.
“If suddenly there is an increase in covid hospitalizations after a pause, that’s enough clue to recommend circulating a new fear mutant. The clinical manifestation of the disease speaks volumes,” said Dr. GC Khilnani, former head of Lung. Department, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi.
Meanwhile, offering the Indian scenario, INSACOG’s latest bulletin reported that the BA. 2 sublineage of the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 is the dominant circulating strain.
“Omicron and its sublineages remain the dominant variant in India. BA. 2 and its descendant lineages, in particular, BA. 2. 75, have basically been discovered over the last week in other parts of India. The appearance of BA. 5 has decreased in recent weeks. No increase in hospitalizations or severity of illness was observed in this period,” the report said.
The total number of samples sequenced is 286,860 to date, of which 78,073 are of the Omicron variant. A total of 1,52,615 variants of fear and interest were reported, making 81. 7%.
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