The Centre has stepped up surveillance on the dominant Delta variant through sentinel sites even as it keeps an eye out for new mutants, said health administrators. This is even as India’s ‘R’ value, or reproduction number, representing the high transmissibility of the virus, hovers over 1 in some States.

States such as Himachal Pradesh and Punjab have an effective R value of 1.3, which is a cause of concern, said the Health Ministry on Tuesday. Other States that also have R value of more than or equal to 1 include Uttar Pradesh(1.1), Andhra Pradesh (1), Gujarat (1.1), Madhya Pradesh(1.1), Goa(1) and Nagaland (1), it added.

Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary, Health Ministry, said: “In limited States and limited districts, it was found that the R value was more than 1, so it is crucial to take more effective steps in those areas.”

Kerala and Tamil Nadu are among the 9 States with 37 districts that show increasing trend in daily Covid cases over the period of last two weeks, he said, adding that in the past seven days Kerala registered 51.51 per cent of total infections recorded in India over one week.

Sentinel sites

Dr SK Singh, Director at National Centre for Disease Control, said it was important to look for new mutants and, for this purpose, sentinel sites have been identified across the country, and asked to send 15 samples a fortnight to designated INSACOG (genome sequencing) laboratories.

Sentinel sites are identified hospitals and labs from where random samples are picked up periodically, and the data is compared over time to pick up trends or early warnings on existing variants or new variants.

“More than 277 sentinel sites have been identified in the country, with each State having 5 labs and 5 tertiary care hospitals.

“All these labs have started sending samples since July. In the previous month, about 8000 samples were sent,” said Singh.

Singh also informed that currently there are 86 cases of the Delta Plus variant, with Maharashtra having the maximum cases. He further stated that two variants – Kappa and B.1.6.173 – are currently under examination if they have any public health impact.

“In a 4-month period since March, no surge in Delta plus cases was noticed and no evidence was found that this virus could drive exponential surge in the country,” said Singh.

“Delta variant is ruling the world. Its transmissibility and attack rate is more than the alpha variant, as per the WHO latest report. This virus also increase the instances of hospitalisation,” said VK Paul, Niti Aayog, Member-Health. However, he further said that the current vaccines are effective and protects against disease and mortality.

On the need for booster doses, he added the government was watching at situation.

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