Coronavirus | Maharashtra monitoring delta plus variant cases

Even as Maharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope on Wednesday mentioned he has directed officers to watch the ‘Delta Plus’ variant, a member of the COVID-19 job pressure, Dr. Shashank Joshi, mentioned there was no adequate knowledge but to trigger alarm on it.

“Variant of concern, Vaccine and Panic. ‘Delta plus’ VOC [variant of concern] does not have sufficient data to be alarmed except that we must continue our strict COVID appropriate behaviour with double mask, avoiding crowds and continuing vaccination. Delta plus virulence unknown, transmission may be more,” tweeted Dr. Joshi.

Highly infectious

The State has reported 21 of the 40 cases of the variant, thought-about extremely infectious.

Mr. Tope mentioned they included 9 cases in Ratnagiri, seven in Jalgaon, two in Mumbai and one case every in Palghar, Thane and Sindhudurg districts.

“Just how infectious this new variant is can only be ascertained after we have enough data. Currently, the State has reported 21 cases in 7,500-odd samples tested after May 15. We need far more samples to gauge the severity. So, I have instructed authorities in each district to collect at least 100 samples [who may have come in contact with the index patients] in recent days to know its spread,” he mentioned.

The Centre has suggested Maharashtra, Kerala and Madhya Pradesh to strengthen surveillance and acceptable well being measures.

Steady decline

“Currently, the number of such Delta Plus variants is only few but the distribution or detection in various States during the past two + months indicates that [it] is already present in some States and [they] may need to enhance their public health response by focusing on surveillance, enhanced testing, quick contact-tracing and priority vaccination,” the official assertion mentioned.

The State, which has been witnessing a gradual decline within the cases for the reason that previous month, has now a bit of over 1.20 lakh lively cases.