Amid the overall pandemic dip, a new subvariant of the COVID-19 Delta mutation threatens to spill new infections and troubles, especially for the people of Indore. As per a genome sequencing report of the National Centre of Disease Control (NCDC), around 7 cases of AY.4 - a sublineage of the Delta variant- have been detected in the district. Notably, the new mutation is presently a 'variant of interest' and not much is known about its transmissibility, virulence and overall severity.

Mhow becomes the COVID hotspot

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The Indore health authorities had conducted a routine COVID-19 sampling for genome sequencing in September and its results have raised alarms here. A new subvariant of the Delta coronavirus has surfaced on the pandemic landscape, which is neither Delta nor Delta plus in structure, informed experts.

This circular further highlights that the sub-lineage variant has caused a 64% surge in Indore's COVID tallies in the month of September alone. In figures, a total of 44 army officers, training in the Army War College in Mhow has tested COVID positive between September 23 and 25, marking this zone as a pandemic epicentre for the district. 2 of the 7 new AY.4 cases are also army officers posted in the Mhow Cantonment, informed the Indore CMO. Dr. Saitya.

Another pandemic surge in Indore?

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Besides COVID-19 AY.4, the main global sub-lineage, the Delta plus mutation, a variant of concern is also gripping Indore. As yet, around 181 cases of the variants of concerns and interest have emerged here, including 112 of Delta, 46 of the UK Variant Alpha, a single case of sub-variant Alpha and the rest of Beta.