Omicron in community transmission stage in India, dominant in metros: INSACOG

By Team Newsable | First Published Jan 23, 2022, 1:38 PM IST

According to the INSACOG's January 10 report, which was posted on Sunday, while the majority of Omicron cases thus far have been asymptomatic or moderate, hospitalizations and ICU cases have increased in the current wave, and the threat level remains stable.

The Omicron strain of COVID-19 is in the community transmission stage in India. It has become prevalent in various metros where new cases have been increasing rapidly, according to the INSACOG's latest advisory. It further said that the BA.2 lineage, an infectious sub-variant of Omicron, has been detected in a significant proportion of the country. , which was posted on Sunday, while the majority of Omicron cases thus far have been asymptomatic or moderate, hospitalizations and ICU cases have increased in the current wave, and the threat level remains stable.

In India, Omicron is currently in community transmission and has become prevalent in many metros, where new cases are increasing dramatically. "Because the BA.2 lineage constitutes a significant proportion of the population in India, S gene dropout-based screening is expected to produce a high number of false negatives," it stated.

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"There is little indication of fast dissemination, and while it exhibits immunological escape characteristics, it is not currently a variety of concerns. So yet, no cases have been discovered in India," according to the INSACOG.

, also posted on Sunday, the INSACOG stated that Omicron is now in community transmission in India and has grown prevalent in Delhi and Mumbai, where new cases have been increasing quickly. The further spread of Omicron in India is now expected to be through internal transmission rather than foreign travellers. It added, "A revised sampling and sequencing strategy of INSACOG is being worked out to address genomic surveillance objectives in the wake of a dynamic changing scenario of virus infection."

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Under the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the INSACOG reports genomic monitoring of SARS CoV -2 across the country by sequencing samples from sentinel locations and thorough state-by-state district analysis for select states. The INSACOG has sequenced 1,50,710 samples and evaluated 1,27,697 samples thus far.

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