Mar 12,2024
NEW DELHI: As Covid-19 cases rise in the country, the network of laboratories set up to monitor genomic variations of the coronavirus in India will hold a meeting on Friday. “By Friday we will come to know about the overall situation and the proportion of other existing sub-variants,” said a member of Insacog on the condition of anonymity.
Parts of North India have been seeing an increase in Covid-19 numbers for the last few days. Last week, Delhi recorded 63 new Covid-19 cases, the capital’s highest daily total since May of last year. The last time the daily number of Covid-19 cases in Delhi exceeded 50 was in May 2023.
Sandeep Budhiraja, group medical director, Max Healthcare, said there has been an increase in both flu and Covid cases. However, the respite is that the disease is “generally mild.”
“Only a few hospitalisations have been seen so far,” he told ET.
States like Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and Bihar have also been seeing an uptick in the number of cases. The cases saw a rise in December, the highest day count from the country was 841 on December 30. However, this time the northern part of India seems to be witnessing a rise.
According to the Insacog member, JN.1 sub-variant had become the dominant Covid-19 variant in India in January and continued to be dominant, accounting for more than 60% of the coronavirus cases in the country. JN.1 surpassed XBB, which was the dominant variant for a long period in the country. The cases in UP rose to 36 during the fortnight from February 4-19 and 164 during February 19-March 5. Likewise, the number of cases detected in Bihar have also gone up tremendously.
Another Insacog member said there was nothing to worry as such occasional surges are expected. “The pattern of the disease has remained the same. Suddenly it rises, and then the numbers go down. The good news is that there is nothing unusual seen in terms of severity or hospitalisation.
Source: Healthworld