It was called “Delta Plus”. Health Minister Harsh Vardhan sounded the alarm last Tuesday and called this new variant “worrying”. According to Inasog, the consortium responsible for genome sequencing, “Delta Plus” is even more contagious, can attach itself better to lung cells and is more resistant to certain treatments based on monoclonal antibodies.

India has observed 48 cases of the variant in 11 states, the Department of Health said on Friday. The latter advises the affected areas to take immediate containment measures, intensify the tests and ensure a follow-up of the vaccination in the affected districts.

A known mutation since June 11th

The “Delta plus” was first mentioned on June 11th in the newsletter of the British health authority, which named it “Delta-AY.1”. It is a Delta variant, which was previously called the Indian variant and has a mutation encoded for K417N. The latter is also present in the beta variant, which was originally identified in South Africa and is less sensitive to acquired immunity.

As of June 24th, this Delta Plus variant had been identified in at least eleven countries, including France, Great Britain and the United States the Gisaid genome database . “Basically, it has the same properties as the Delta variant, which is already considered worrying,” explains epidemiologist Chandrakant Lahariya. “As far as we know today, the Delta Plus variant is no more worrying than the Delta variant itself,” says the public health expert.

The delta variant is highly infectious

The extremely contagious Delta variant contributed significantly to the violent second wave that recently swept through India. According to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, this variant is expected to represent 90% of the new Covid cases in the European Union by the end of August. In India, the number of infections has passed the 30 million mark since the pandemic began. And Covid officially claimed the lives of 393,310 people on June 25, numbers that would be greatly underestimated.

A third wave is looming in India

Today the pandemic is rapidly receding and restrictions are being gradually lifted. But the authorities are taking the impending third wave very seriously, especially since the vaccination campaign has suffered many hiccups. While 53.4 million Indians were fully vaccinated on June 25th, that’s only 4% of the population.

According to a Reuters poll of 40 health experts, India should expect another outbreak by October. “At this point in time we have no indications that Delta Plus could be responsible for a possible third wave,” said Anurag Agarwal, director of the Institute for Genomics and Integrative Biology, member of Inasog., In a local television station.