Indian Council of Medical Research director general Balram Bhargava said that mutations in coronavirus are sporadic and single mutations are not found to be dominant in any particular area in India. He made this observation while clarifying that there was no Indian variant of coronavirus.
Bhargava maintained that both Covaxin and Covishield were effective against the UK and Brazilian variants, while work against the South African strain was on.
“All viruses drift as the virus replicates itself but the changes that occur due to this process are not important,” health secretary Rajesh Bhushan said. “However, when a virus shifts, it undergoes significant changes and there is a need to test whether my existing vaccines work against the virus, known as variant or mutant virus,” he added.
COVID-19 Testing Update. For more details visit: https://t.co/dI1pqvXAsZ @MoHFW_INDIA @DeptHealthRes #ICMRFIGHTSCOVID19 #IndiaFightsCOVID19 #CoronaUpdatesInIndia #COVID19 #Unite2FightCorona pic.twitter.com/FZUqaSP7CM
— ICMR (@ICMRDELHI) March 31, 2021
In the last 24 hours, India recorded 56,211 new coronavirus cases that take the total count or tally to 1,20,95,855 on Tuesday. These numbers include six states Maharashtra, Punjab, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat that continue to report a surge in daily new cases.
This is the second peak. India had fought through the first wave of infection six months ago, recording the highest single-day spike of 93,617 cases on September 16, while the highest number of deaths recorded in a day were 1,169 on September 15.
