More virulent version of COVID Delta variant raises fear

The Indian origin, highly contagious, Delta variant Covid-19 virus has reportedly mutated into a more virulent version named Delta + or AY.1, reports The Times of India. The new version is possibly immune to the monoclonal antibodies cocktail currently being prescribed to cure the virus.

The Public Health England (PHE), a UK government's agency, reported that so far, 63 genomes of Delta or B.617.2 variant with the new K417N mutation have been identified globally on the global science initiative GISAID.

According to Dr Vinod Scaria, a clinician and computational biologist at Delhi Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, there is evidence that K417N has resistance to monoclonal antibodies Casirivimab and Imdevimab. The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation has authorised their cocktail for emergency use.

Scaria, in his tweet, said that among the emerging variants, Delta+ or B.1.617.2.1 was characterised by the acquisition of the K417N mutation that maps to the receptor-binding domain and has been associated with immune escape. He further said that though the variant frequency K417N is not found much in India, there is a lot of interest in understanding these mutations as the variant is continuously evolving.

According to PHE, Delta+ was found through routine scanning of variations in Delta, and a small number of detected sequences had acquired the mutation K417N. Scientists say that the earliest of the sequence was found in Europe during March. Scaria also said that 127 sequences from Europe, Asia, and America are now available in the public domain and several genomes available across the globe are part of the B.1.617.2.1 lineage.

PHE's latest update shows that India has reported six cases of Delta+ variant as of June 7th.