Corona Pandemic / Monitoring of international travelers is most important, new forms of virus can enter the country

Scientists of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) have considered the monitoring of international travelers to be the most important. They say that through these more variants of corona virus can enter the country. Scientists have also recently detected the presence of eta variants of the virus in Delhi and Mumbai, which have been found in patients coming from abroad as well as at the community level.

In this variant, an antibody attacking mutation has also been seen. The eta variant of the corona has been found in a joint study by the Indian Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune-based ICMR, New Delhi-based ICMR and Genestring Diagnostics, which tested the corona at the Delhi airport. Accordingly, samples of 212 people were collected at Delhi and Mumbai airports. Of these, 146 were related to foreign travel.

Whereas 66 patients did not have a travel history. When genome sequencing of these samples was done, 14 of the 90 reported eta variants were found. People who found this variant came from countries like UAE, South Africa, Qatar, Nigeria, Sudan etc. Apart from these, this variant has been found in two more samples which did not have travel history and both these samples were taken from outside Mumbai airport.

According to Dr. Pragya Yadav, Senior Scientist of NIV, for the first time in India, the Eta variant was confirmed in February 2021. So far, this variant has been kept in the worrying category by the World Health Organization (WHO). Its presence has been detected in 85 countries of the world. However, in India it is now being seen both in the community and abroad.

This variant has a mutation known as attacking antibody. This is the reason why there is a need to increase surveillance on the activity of Omicron and Delta as well as other variants of the corona virus.