Covid: Omicron, sub-lineages remain dominant variant in India, says INSACOG

Amid the declining trajectory of daily Covid-19 cases in India, the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Consortium on Genomics said that the Omicron and its sub-lineages continue to be the dominant variant in India

Amid the declining trajectory of daily Covid-19 cases in India, the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Consortium on Genomics (INSACOG) on Sunday said that the Omicron and its sub-lineages continue to be the dominant variant in India.

"Omicron and its sub-lineages continue to be the dominant variant in India. BA.2 and its descendent lineages, in particular, BA.2.75 has been mostly found over the last week in different parts of India," the INSACOG said in its recent bulletin about India's current scenario.

It further said that the incidence of BA.5 has decreased in the last few weeks. Any surge in hospitalisation or any disease severity has not been observed during this time-period.

Globally, the INSACOG said that the Omicron is the most abundant variant of concern (VOC) circulating worldwide, accounting for 99.4 per cent of sequences reported globally. BA.5 Omicron descendent lineages continue to be dominant globally.

"The prevalence of BA.4 descendent lineages, including BA.4.6 decreased during last week. The prevalence of BA.2 descendent lineages (BA.2.X) remained constant last week. BA.2.75, an Omicron descendent lineage under monitoring, still shows a relatively low prevalence globally, however, a number of countries have observed recent increasing trends," said the INSACOG.

India reported 1,994 fresh Covid cases and four deaths in the last 24 hours, taking the national fatalities tally to 5,28,961. The active caseload of the country presently stands at 23,432 cases, accounting for 0.05 per cent of the country's total positive cases, the Union Health Ministry said on Sunday.

--IANS

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