Coronavirus: Variants will keep coming, Dr NK Arora said. (File)
New COVID-19 variants will keep coming, however, the new variants aren't causing severe diseases or increasing the number of cases said Chairman of the COVID-19 working group of India, National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI), Dr NK Arora.
In an exclusive interview with ANI, Dr Arora said," variants will keep coming but at the moment these aren't causing severe disease or increase in the number of cases."
"So, I would like to tell people that these variants will keep on occurring. There is nothing to panic about. Because there is none of the variants is causing severe disease at the moment as per the facts and figures are given by the Indian data. Second is that whether any of these patients or their contacts had more severe disease, that is also not true," he added.
On XE variant cases reported in Maharashtra and Gujarat Dr Arora said, "Currently whatever has been described from India XE variant, it is only by the first layer of testing. So, one is having less confidence whether it is XE or whether it is anything else in the initial XE variant which was described from one of the states. Subsequently, it was found that it is either XM or XJ, not XE. So, it just shows that these variants with just one test it's very difficult and particularly when new variants are coming."
Dr Arora further explained that three layers of testing are required and INSACOG is closely monitoring, "So, what is happening in India wherever XE has been reported after first testing, whether it is Gujarat or Maharashtra the local testing has not shown any undue increase in the number of cases in those areas are in the contacts of the people, where this virus was circulated. So, the first concern that if a new sub-variant of Omicron is described, whether it is growing more rapidly, we are very closely following and INSACOG have so far not found anything, which is of concern."