India Coronavirus Dispatch: Fatalities cross 300,000-mark, recoveries surge

How home-testing kits work, is India late in buying vaccines from global markets, and more-news relevant to the country's fight against the pandemic

Fatalities cross the grim milestone of 300,000

India reported 222,315 fresh coronavirus infections on Monday, taking the cumulative caseload to 26.7 million, according to central health ministry data. The country saw 4,454 deaths due to the pandemic, taking the death toll to 303,720. The active caseload is at 2.7 million, while the total recoveries have surged to 23.7 million. As many as 196 million shots have been administered since the nationwide inoculation programme kicked off on January 16. Of these, 942,722 were given on Sunday. Read more
 

B.1.617 variant, first detected in India, found in 65% of samples sequenced

India's health minister Harsh Vardhan said the B.1.617 variant of the novel coronavirus, which has been identified as "variant of concern" by the World Health organization (WHO), has become the dominant one in the country, according to a report in the Hindustan Times. "When we talk about genome sequencing, over 25,739 samples have been sequenced by INSACOG and 9,508 were found with variants of concern. Out of these, B.1.617 variant was found in almost 65 per cent of the samples making it one of the most common variants," said Vardhan. Read more

EXPLAINED: How the home-testing kit works

Every Covid home-testing kit comes with instructions and a biohazard bag that needs to be safely disposed of after testing, an explainer in The Indian Express said. The testing method is a nasal swab, but not the deep nasopharyngeal swab. The kit is supposed to provide results in 15 minutes. People who test positive are recommended to isolate immediately and contact the local municipal bodies and their healthcare provider. Individuals who test positive may be considered as true positives, and no-repeat testing is required. Read more

India late to the table in buying vaccines from international markets: Top virologist

Unlike other nations, the Indian administration delayed purchasing vaccines in bulk from international markets and now may have few options left on the table, virologist Gagandeep Kang told NDTV.

Kang is a top virologist who is also a member of the Supreme Court-appointed committee on medical oxygen. Kang's comments come at a time when several states are floating global tenders for vaccine supply. Vaccine centres in many states have shut down amid a shortage of shots. "The rest of the world has been buying vaccines at risk for a year, so what's the supply that is available in the market for us to go now and say we want to buy vaccines?" she said. Read more

Structural details of how variants escape immune response: Study

The novel coronavirus variants that are spreading fast carry mutations that allow the virus to escape some of the immune response created naturally or by inoculation, an explainer in The Indian Express said. A new study has found key details of the working of these escape mutations. The research, published in the journal Science, used structural biology techniques to map at high resolution how important classes of neutralising antibodies bind to the original SARS-CoV-2 strain—and how the process is disrupted by mutations found in new variants first detected in Brazil (P.1), the United Kingdom (B.1.1.7), South Africa (B.135.1) and India (B.1.617). Read more