Figure Legend: The bar graph represents distribution of various variants from December 2020 to March-2022.

Different SARS-CoV-2 variants drove three main COVID-19 waves in India. A bunch of researchers has studied the consequences of SARS-COV-2’s Variants of Concern (VOC) utilizing genomic surveillance.

The examine relies on the surveillance and sequenced samples in Pune throughout December 2020 to March 2022.

“The next-generation technology was employed to sequence SARS-CoV-2 genomes obtained from RNA samples of COVID-19 positive patients (by RT-PCR). For our study, we considered 10,496 samples which were sequenced using two different platforms at NCL, Pune,” informs Dr Krishanpal Karmodiya, the lead researcher.

A city-wide community of researchers, clinicians, and pathology diagnostic laboratories was fashioned for genome surveillance of COVID-19 in Pune. The sequencing information indicated that completely different VOCs comparable to Delta, Kappa, and Omicron had been predominantly driving the second and third waves in Pune.

The Covid-seq staff at IISER Pune (from Left to Right) – Dr Soumen Khan, Dr Dipti Deshpande, Ms. Nikita Shah, Ms. Unnati Bhalerao, Ms. Manisha Tupekar, Ms. Rutuja Sawant, Ms. Pradnya Kadam, Dr Aurnab Ghose and Dr Krishanpal Karmodiya

The staff thought-about numerous elements for learning the general impact of those variants which included infectivity fee contemplating age and gender.

“The age group with the highest number of infections was from 31 to 45 years during the phase when Delta variant was prevalent and age group 16-30 years during the Omicron variant. However, there was no significant difference observed in infectivity rate considering gender,” provides Dr Karmodiya.

Mutations in several variants had been additionally in contrast; and amongst 10,496 complete genome sequences, 98 distinctive single mutations had been detected on the Spike protein which performs an vital position in initiation of the an infection course of.

The ‘band of five’ outbreak information analytics method, integrating 5 various kinds of information, highlights the significance of a powerful surveillance system for understanding the spatiotemporal evolution of the SARS-CoV-2 genome in Pune. “The findings have important implications for pandemic preparedness and could be critical tools for understanding and responding to future outbreaks,” the researchers imagine.

The work was supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, CSIR, Villoo Poonawalla Foundation (VPF), Janakidevi Bajaj Gram Vikas Sanstha (JBGVS), DST-Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), DBT-Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG), and Johns Hopkins India Institute Covid Relief Fund.

The examine has been revealed within the Journal of Infection and Public Health. The staff comprised researchers from the CSIR-National Chemical Laboratory; the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER); The Pune Knowledge Cluster (PKC), Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune; GenePath Diagnostics India Private Limited, Pune; and Byramjee Jeejeebhoy Government Medical College (BJGMC), Pune.

India Science Wire

ISW/SM/NCL/COVID-19/Eng/21/06/2023