The government said today that so far no cases of the Lambda variant of Covid-19 have been found in India.
In response to a question at a press conference, Deputy Health Minister Lav Agarwal said the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genome Consortium (INSACOG) is closely monitoring the variant.
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“Lamda was the seventh variant of interest identified by the World Health Organization (WHO) on June 14 and detected in 25 countries,” he said.
“In our country, no cases have been reported and INSACOG is monitoring them and we are vigilant. In Peru, 80 percent of infections were due to this variant also found in South American countries and also in the United Kingdom and European countries,” Agarwal said. The public will be controlled.
NITI Aayog (Health) Fellow Dr. V K Paul said the Lambda variant is a “Variant of interest”, so its full significance is still being explored.
“As far as we know it did not enter our country, we did not detect this variant in our country. Our INSACOG surveillance system is very effective and it will detect it if it enters our country because when you do the sequencing, all this will be picked up. So we should watch for that.”
Dr. Paul said the Lambda strain is a different type of concern, which means it is being noted for its public health, but it hasn’t been shown to have excessive transmissibility, affect excessive severity, or any other problem such as those related to vaccines.
“We should be watchful for these variants because the virus is under pressure and when it goes under pressure then it tends to pick up characteristics that tend to help it in survival but as of now we should be watching such variants for their presence in our country but as of now we have no evidence that this has been detected in any part of our country.”