No Delmicron virus yet, time to fight Omicron: Health experts

A worker cleans a Covid-19 ward at a Civil hospital in Ahmedabad earlier this month. Pic/AFP

As the debate rises in India over a new Coronavirus strain being called Delmicron, leading health experts on Saturday advised people not to pay heed to rumours and wait for the global health agencies like the World Health Organisation (WHO) or US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to confirm or deny the presence of such a Covid variant. Several news reports talking about Delmicron surfaced this week in India, quoting Dr Shashank Joshi, a member of Maharashtra's C-19 task force, who said: "Delmicron, the twin spikes of Delta and Omicron, in Europe and US, has led to a mini-tsunami of cases."

There is no such Covid variant as of now, and there is no information either on another mutation of the SARS-CoV-2 virus after Omicron, which is spreading wildly worldwide. Neither the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) nor the Indian National Covid-19 Task Force have spoken about the presence of the so-called Delmicron. Harshal R Salve, Associate Professor at the Centre for Community Medicine, AIIMS, New Delhi, said that no such variant exists. "Omicron is also no new virus as it's a mutated Coronavirus. As per evidence available so far, its infectivity is on the higher side, but the symptoms are milder in nature. So there is no need to panic about it," he added.

India has reported a total of 415 Omicron cases, the Health Ministry said on Saturday. According to Dr Neha Gupta, Infectious Diseases Specialist at Medanta-The Medicity in Gurgaon, Delta is still the predominant Covid-19 strain in India while Omicron is now spreading.

TN warned of Omicron spike

Experts from WHO, including Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan, has warned the Tamil Nadu Health Department against the possibility of a sudden spurt in Omicron cases following inadequate vaccines and lack of Covid-appropriate behaviour during the upcoming festival season. Swaminathan in a review meeting with the Chief Minister, Health Minister and Health Department officials virtually said that the Omicron variant may not give time to prepare for healthcare providers. The WHO Chief Scientist, according to the state Health Department officials, warned that the Omicron variant has a high transmission rate and it evades antibodies and immunity. The experts cautioned the government to be prepared with more beds, oxygen cylinders, drugs and testing kits.

Central teams in 10 states

In the wake of the rising Covid-19 cases, the Centre has deployed multi-disciplinary teams to 10 identified states which are reporting an increase in the number of positive cases or slow vaccination pace to aid the efforts of states. As per the government notice, these teams will be deployed in Kerala, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Mizoram, Karnataka, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Punjab and for three to five days working with the state health authorities. The teams will be involved in contact tracing, including surveillance, containment operations along with Covid-19 testing including sending of adequate samples from clusters to Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) network for genome sequencing, besides enforcement of Covid-appropriate behaviours.

India's Covid-19 caseload has surged to 3.47 crore with 7,189 cases in 24 hours. India reported 387 Covid-19 related deaths and 7,286 recoveries during the same time frame. Meanwhile, the daily active cases have declined to 484.

3,47,79,815
Total number of cases in the country as of Saturday

4,79,520
Total no. of deaths due to the virus in India

3,42,23,263
Patients recovered and discharged in India as of Saturday

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