After the UK, South African, and Brazilian variants, the Indian variant has started to worry some experts. We must say the B.1.617 variant – the scientific name given to the strain – is said to be behind a new surge of the Covid-19 epidemic in India.
Data have been speaking for themselves over the past couple of days. This Monday April 19, 2021, India has set a new contamination toll record with 273,810 cases reported in only 24 hours. In New Delhi, the situation is alarming, so much that authorities have decided to place the 20 million inhabitants in lockdown for one week as the city is the hardest-hit one in the country. But then, how could this epidemic surge in India be explained? According to some scientists, the famous Indian variant – nicknamed “double mutant” – may be behind.
The B.1.617 variant has been first spotted on October 5, 2020 in the Nagpur area in the heart of India. But, as Hyderabad-based director of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology Rakesh Mishra told Le Monde: “it took time to figure out this was a genuine variant. It was confirmed in December”. Since then, scientists have been working on this variant nicknamed “double mutant” because it shows mutations observed on the Californian variant (the L452R mutation), but also said to be close to the Brazilian and South African variants (the E484Q mutation). Yet, as director of the Industrial Research’s Genomics Institute of New Delhi Anurag Agrawal told Le Monde, “the Indian variant is the outcome of fifteen specific mutations”, before adding: “this is no recombination of the Californian and South African variants”.
What about contagiousness? According to experts, the “double mutant” is more transmissible and more likely to infect again than the others. “It seems to be especially contagious, but studies do not tell if its form is more severe than the others”, epidemiologist and biostatistician Catherine Hill told 20 Minutes. Therefore, the question as for its lethality remains unanswered.
Moving on to the efficacy of vaccines, once again, several questions are still without an answer. But several characteristics of the Indian variant let think it resist better to antibodies and therefore to vaccines already inoculated. “In fact, many people in India who have had Covid caught it again. One of the mutations of the virus seem to resist and may let us fear a risk of immune escape”, Hauts-de-Seine Garches Raymond-Poincaré hospital infectious disease specialist Benjamin Davido told 20 Minutes.
Yet, can sole the Indian variant explain the new surge of the Covid-19 epidemic in India? Even though Santé Publique France notices the emergence of this Indian variant coincides with “a very negative epidemic situation”, people should remain cautious. Therefore, “it seems likely this deterioration of the health situation is mostly caused by the many big gatherings that recently took place everywhere in the country and the low compliance with preventive measures by the overall population”, the health agency explains. Lately, several events led to major gatherings across the country, such as national and local elections, and Hindu celebration Kumbh Mela.
Another cause for concern raised by Santé Publique France? The presence of this “double mutant” elsewhere in the world. The Indian variant has been “sporadically detected in England, Germany, in Canada, and Singapore”. Two cases have been also identified in Guadeloupe.
Faced with concerts, the UK authorities have even decided to ban – since April 19 – Indian travelers to enter the United Kingdom – excluding British citizens who must comply with a self-isolation period.
