The Health Department is taking all precautions and control measures to ensure that local transmission due to the new virus variant first reported in the UK, B.1.1.7, which has now been detected in the samples from six travellers from UK who reached the State between December 9-23, does not take place in the State.
Health Minister K.K. Shylaja told media persons here on Tuesday that none of the six persons who had contracted COVID-19 because of the virus variant had displayed any symptoms of concern and that their condition was stable. Except for the two persons in Kozhikode who had been isolated in hospital, the others were in strict home isolation, she added.
41 positive for COVID-19
So far, 41 persons from the UK, out of a total of 1,609 travellers who reached the State between December 9 and 23, had tested positive for COVID-19 in the State by RT-PCR. As on Tuesday noon, 31 samples had been sent to NIV Pune for genomic sequencing, of which the virus variant B.1.1.7 had been detected in six samples.
Since the UK had reported that there is a decrease in RT-PCR threshold cycle (Ct) value by around two for this variant compared to other variants (indicating an increased viral load by a factor of around four), the Centre had directed that only those samples that are positive for SARS-CoV-2 by RT-PCR and preferably with a Ct value of 30 or less should be packaged and transported.
(The Ct value is the number of cycles necessary in a PCR test to spot the virus. The Ct value indicates how much virus an infected person harbours. The lower the Ct value, the higher will be the amount virus in the sample.)
However, the Health Minister said that according to the information they received, except for the six samples which were found to have the mutant variant of SARS-CoV-2, most of the other samples could be sequenced as all these had a Ct value of over 30.
Epidemiologists have already pointed out that rather than just focus on those who have returned from the UK or Europe, the State should be doing random genomic analysis of PCR samples it already has in the repository of scientific institutions and major microbiology labs to ascertain if the UK virus variant or any other mutated virus strain are in circulation in the State.
While Kerala has already signed an agreement with the New Delhi-based CSIR Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology for genomic surveillance across all districts and samples are being collected, the study is yet to commence.
