UK, Israel seeing rise in Delta plus Covid variant
Darpan News Desk IANS, 20 Oct, 2021 11:09 AM
The UK and Israel are witnessing a surge in Covid-19 infections due to a new descendant of the Delta variant AY.4.2, also called the "Delta Plus" variant.
While Delta is the UK's dominant variant, AY.4.2 delta sublineage is currently increasing in frequency. It includes spike mutations A222V and Y145H, which might give the virus survival advantages, according to the latest report from the UK Health Security Agency.
AY.4.2 delta "sublineage accounted for approximately 6 per cent of all sequences generated, on an increasing trajectory", the report said.
"Delta remains the predominant variant... a Delta sublineage newly-designated as AY.4.2 is noted to be expanding in England. It is now a signal in monitoring and assessment has commenced," it added.
Although tests are underway to understand how much of a threat this Delta sub-variant may pose, experts say it is unlikely to take off in a big way or escape current vaccines, the BBC reported.
"It is potentially a marginally more infectious strain. It is nothing compared with what we saw with Alpha and Delta, which were something like 50 to 60 per cent more transmissible. So we are talking about something quite subtle here and that is currently under investigation," Prof. Francois Balloux, director of University College London's Genetics Institute, was quoted as saying to BBC.
"It is likely to be up to 10 per cent more transmissible," he added.
The British government is keeping a "very close eye" on rising levels of Covid-19 infections, Prime Minister Boris Johnson's spokesperson said on Tuesday.
On Sunday, Scott Gottlieb, a former US Food and Drug Administration Commissioner, called for research into the sub-variant.
"UK reported its biggest one-day Covid-19 case increase in three months just as the new delta variant AY.4 with the S:Y145H mutation in the spike reaches eight per cent of UK sequenced cases," he wrote on Twitter.
"There's no clear indication that it is considerably more transmissible, but we should work to more quickly characterise these and other new variants. We have the tools," he added.
However, Balloux said that "at this stage, there is no need to panic. It might be slightly, subtly more transmissible but it is not something absolutely disastrous like we saw previously".
In Israel, an 11-year-old boy returning from Moldova to the country has been identified as Covid-19 positive, carrying the novel Delta variant AY4.2, the only recorded case in Israel of the new strand of the coronavirus, the Jerusalem Post reported.
The child was tested in Ben-Gurion Airport upon his arrival and has since been in self-isolation, the Health Ministry said on Tuesday.
On Thursday evening, a suicide bombing rocked a gate of the airport where a crashing crowd was waiting for evacuation flights, and later another explosion hit the nearby Baron Camp, a former coalition base.
In his first comments on Kashmir, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid has said that Pakistan and India should sit together to resolve all their outstanding issues because both are neighbours and their interests are linked to each other.
The Haqqani network also established close ties with Pakistan's powerful yet notorious Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which provided it weapons, training, and financial support.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who hosted the summit, and France's Emmanuel Macron were among those calling for an extension in order to more fully evacuate all foreign nationals and vulnerable Afghans who helped the Americans and the NATO allies before the country's recent fall to the Taliban.
The Pentagon promptly announced it will press ahead with plans to require members of the military to get vaccinated amid the battle against the extra-contagious delta variant. Louisiana State University likewise said it will demand its students get the shot.
The situation at the Kabul airport has remained tense ever since the Taliban fighters swept into Kabul without encountering any resistance, and gained full control over the Afghan capital within a few hours on August 15.
