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Patients Turning Serious in 3-4 Days, Havoc in Vizag: New AP Strain Might be 15 Times More Virulent

Deepak Kiran

Deepak Kiran

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The newly discovered AP strain is considered to be at least 15 times more virulent than the earlier ones, including the Indian variants of B1.617 and B1.618.​



The Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) has discovered N440K variant, that might be responsible for creating havoc in Visakhapatnam and other parts of the State, experts said. Though it is too early to conclude that the new variant, which is being called the AP strain, is behind the huge surge in some parts of state.

The strain first discovered in Kurnool, is considered to be at least 15 times more virulent than the earlier ones, and may be even stronger than the Indian variants of B1.617 and B1.618, a report in The Hindu said.

“We are still to ascertain, which strain is in circulation right now, as samples have been sent to CCMB for analysis. But one thing is certain that the variant at present which is in circulation in Visakhapatnam is quite different from what we have seen during the first wave last year," District Collector V Vinay Chand, who is updated about the developments by senior doctors in the health department said.

District COVID Special Officer PV Sudhakar said that they have observed that the new variant has shorter incubation period and the progress of the disease is much rapid. In the earlier cases, a patient affected with Covid-19 would take at least a week to reach the hypoxia or dyspnea stage, but now patients are reaching the serious condition stage within three or four days. Sudhakar added that it has led to pressure on beds with oxygen and ICU beds.
 
From bad to worse... On a lighter note.. Once they come to India even virus is start calling themselves people of the state
 

There’s no unique Andhra Covid strain which is 15 times more virulent, says CCMB chief​

CCMB director Rakesh Mishra says prevalence of N440K strain in Andhra Pradesh is less than 5% at the moment and is likely to disappear or be replaced soon.

Hyderabad: The Hyderabad-based Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) Wednesday debunked reports of a unique or a novel strain circulating in Andhra Pradesh, particularly in Visakhapatnam.

In an exclusive chat with ThePrint, CCMB director, Rakesh Mishra, said the prevalence of the variant being called the ‘N440K strain’ in Andhra Pradesh is less than 5 per cent at the moment and is likely to disappear or be replaced soon by other existing variants.

He also said that there is no evidence that the N440K variant is deadly or more infectious than other Covid-19 variants.

“There is no unique AP strain or a Vishakapatnam strain. Neither were any existing strains found to be more infectious or deadly than what we already saw before,” Mishra said.

“The N440K has been around for quite some time and was prevalent in other southern states (Karnataka, Kerala) earlier. But now the N440K in Andhra is less than 5 per cent and is likely to be replaced by a double mutant or any other variant. It could have been around during the first wave also.”

The N440K is a mutation, where the N amino acid at the 440th position of the spike protein changed to the K. The mutation is a part of a number of variants globally, and is associated with immune escape.

The CCMB had, in February, said that there was emerging evidence that the N440K mutation is spreading a lot more in southern states and a closer surveillance is needed to understand its spread properly.

Also denying that the variant is 15 times more virulent in Andhra Pradesh, Mishra said that it would be a misinterpretation to claim so. Citing a pre-print published by the lab a few days ago, which spoke about how the N440K variant grows faster in a ‘culture’, the director said that does not mean it is more virulent in humans.

There was some misinterpretation — our report said the virus grows 10 or 15 times more when grown in a culture. But culture is a different kind of animal cell that we grow and in that, we replicate the virus and the yield is more,” he added. “That does not reflect infectivity in humans. Because humans are whole systems; they have immune systems and a lot of other variations. So, infectivity cannot be compared to what happens in a culture cell.”

According to CCMB’s Vishal Shah, one of the authors of the pre-print, the study did not compare the infective tier of N440K with the B.1.17 UK variant or the B.1.617 Indian variant in this study. The comparison was with its parent variant, which did not have N440K mutation and with another variant that is now almost lost among the population.
 
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