DIBRUGARH: The first case of Covid double variant infection in the country was detected at ICMR-RMRC, Dibrugarh, the Regional Medical Research Centre for North-east region recently. Confirming this, the nodal officer and scientist of ICMR-RMRC Dibrugarh, Dr Biswajyoti Borkakoty, on Monday said that a female doctor from Dibrugarh was found to be infected by the Alpha variant early this year.
Later, after full recovery, she was infected with the Delta variant in May. Terming it as a very rare incident, Borkakoty said that it was the first such a case reported from India. He said that only four such cases of double variant infection have so far been reported worldwide. In January 2021, scientists in Brazil reported that two people had been simultaneously infected with two types of coronavirus.
Another such case was reported from Portugal recently when a 17-year-old caught a second type of Covid while still recovering from a different, pre-existing Covid infection. Similarly in March 2021, a 90-year old woman from Belgium died after being infected with the Alpha and Beta variants of the coronavirus.
“This is the first case of double variant infection detected in India. The patient is a doctor from Dibrugarh who was involved in active Covid-19 duty treating infected patients. She was infected with B.1.1.7 which is called the Alpha variant or UK variant. By March, she was fully vaccinated after recovering. Then again, after more than a month, she got infected again. During genome sequencing recently, we found that she was infected with the Delta variant (B.B.617.2) which is also known as the Indian variant. She had mild symptoms. She recovered quite well and did not require any hospitalisation,” Dr Borkakoty said.
In July last year, a team led by Dr Borkakoty had successfully managed to isolate the Covid-19 virus (SARS-CoV-2) and by doing so, ICMR-RMRC Dibrugarh became the third government laboratory in the country to achieve the feat.
