NEW DELHI: As many as 124 passengers who arrived in India from overseas between December 24 and January 3 had been discovered optimistic for Covid-19 and exams revealed presence of 11 Omicron sub-variants which had been earlier reported in India, well being ministry sources mentioned on Thursday.
The sources mentioned the 11 variants of SARS-CoV-2 had been recognized in Entire Genome Sequencing (WSG) carried out on the samples of 40 of the the passengers who had been discovered optimistic. They mentioned 19,227 worldwide travellers had been examined at airports, sea ports and land ports throughout this era.

“XBB, a sub-variant of Omicron, and its sub-lineages together with XBB.1, XBB.2, XBB.3.4.5 had been present in 14 (35%) of the 40 samples. BQ.1.1 and its sub-lineages BQ 1.122 and BQ 1.1.5: 9 had been present in 9 (23%) samples,” officers mentioned.
Different sub-variants present in WSG carried out on the optimistic samples from among the many worldwide passengers had been BA.5.2, BF7.4.1, CH.1.1, CH 1.1.1 amongst others.

In keeping with INSACOG, a consortium of 54 laboratories to watch the genomic variations in SARS-CoV-2, Covid-19 attributable to XBB and its lineage XBB.1 are principally gentle and just like different Omicron sub-lineages. “Within the present section of the pandemic, the SARS-CoV-2 virus is constantly accumulating mutations, a few of which could contribute to elevated transmissibility and immune evasion leading to transmission benefit over different variants,” the INSACOG had mentioned in an announcement issued in October final yr when XBB and its sub-lineages had been detected in India resulting in panic.

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Nonetheless, INSACOG suggested folks to stick to Covid-appropriate behaviour, particularly within the mild of ongoing festivities.
India began random screening of two% of worldwide passengers arriving within the nation from December 24 onwards. in view of a surge in Covid-19 circumstances in a number of nations, particularly China, Japan and South Korea amongst others.

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Well being ministry officers mentioned between December 24 and January 3, a complete 9.05 lakh worldwide arrivals had been recorded within the nation. Of them, 19,227 folks underwent Covid exams and 124 had been discovered optimistic.