Ludhiana: All contacts, kin of Delta Plus patient test negative

Nitin Jain

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, July 6

In a major sigh of relief, all the family members and contacts of the lone Delta Plus variant-afflicted Covid patient in the district have tested negative, the government has confirmed.

The Health Department has so far tested 198 samples of the patient’s family members and contacts, all of whom have reported negative, the officials have revealed.

Besides conducting a house-to-house surveillance at Jand village, to which the patient belonged, 28 samples have been collected from adjoining Latala village, from where one person has tested positive for the Delta variant during the genomic sequencing.

To further check the spread of highly-infectious and dreaded new variant (B.1.617.2) of Covid, which has been first found in India and was gradually spreading to several other countries as well, claiming several lives so far, the Health Department has been holding special vaccination camps at Jand village, where 50 per cent of the eligible population has already been covered.

Punjab has so far reported two cases of Delta Plus — one each from Ludhiana and Patiala districts.

In Patiala, a house-to-house surveillance has been conducted and 71 samples have been collected, one of which has tested positive and sent for genomic sequencing.

Special vaccination drive has also been conducted in the Patiala area where the Delta Plus patient resides and 60 per cent of the eligible population have been jabbed so far.

As far as whole genome sequencing (WGS) was concerned, Punjab has collected 2,491 samples from January to June, of which 2,061, which account for 82.7 per cent, have been processed so far, and 1,859, accounting for 90.2 per cent, have been found positive for variants of concern (VoCs).

In June alone, 72 of the total 80 samples processed for WGS have tested positive for VoCs, of which 63, which account for 87.5 per cent, were found positive for Delta, only one (1.3 per cent) for Alpha, four (5.5 per cent) for B.1, two (2.8 per cent) for A, and one each (1.3 per cent) for B.1.1 and B.1.575.

In May, 582 of 614 WGS samples had tested positive for VoCs, which accounted for 94.8 per cent, of which 513, accounting for 88.1 per cent, were found positive for Delta, 23 (4 per cent) for Alpha, 41 (7 per cent) for B.1, two (0.3 per cent) for AY.1, and one each (0.2 per cent) for B.1.1.161, B.1.530, and B.1.575.

In April, 439 of 469 WGS samples had tested positive for VoCs, which accounted for 93.6 per cent, of which 207, accounting for 47.1 per cent, tested positive for Delta, 175 (40 per cent) for Alpha, 49 (11.2 per cent) for B.1, 2 (0.5 per cent) other mutations, and one each (0.2 per cent) for B.1.1.135 and B.1.1.

In March, 672 of 703, which accounted for 95.6 per cent, had tested positive for VoCs, of which 635, accounting for 94.5 per cent, had tested positive for Alpha, four (0.6 per cent) for Delta, two (0.3 per cent) for Beta, one each (0.1 per cent) for B.1, B.1.36 and B.1.525, and 27 (4 per cent) for other mutations.

In February, all 23 WGS samples had tested positive for VoCs, which accounted for 100 per cent, of which 16, accounting for 69.6 per cent, had tested positive for Alpha and seven (30.4 per cent) for other mutations.

In January, one of 25 WGS samples, which accounted for 4 per cent, had tested positive for Alpha.

Variant of concern

Designated as ‘variant of concern’ by the government, the Delta Plus cases have been rising steadily, with Maharashtra topping the chart with the highest number of patients recorded so far.

The fast-spreading variant, which is a mutated form of Delta and emerged in India, has so far infected over 50 persons in the country, including two from Punjab.