THD NewsDesk, New Delhi: Indian scientists found a higher association between asymptomatic Covid-19 cases to viral load. The recorded observation of the undertaken study with 200 SARS-Cov-2 infected patients might assist the policymakers in forming new strategies to curb the COVID-19 virus. The study was executed in Telangana.
This discovery will assist in the early detection of the virus in an infected person’s body. The main motif to the reviewed study in the BiorXiv preprint repository was to identify dominant viral lineages spreading among the people of Telangana.
With the rapid increase in the number of cases in Telangana, the caseload in the state had reached 1.27 lakh. The researchers witnessed a concerning spike in the cases since mid-April. 2,734 new cases were reported with nine fatalities on Tuesday, the 1st of September.
The virus samples collected and analyzed from 210 patients determined the accelerated mutations in the viral genome. The researchers found out unique mutations that researchers never came across from the other studies in India. A functionally scathing region of the non-structural protein3 (nsp3) of the virus was misapprehended as the viral genome. The scientists acclaimed that the virus inaugural in the state was from different viral clades. The virus colossally established itself from 20B clade from the month of May.
Murali Dharan Bashyam, from CDFD’s laboratory of Molecular Oncology, told PTI-
“It is important to consider the possibility of infection from asymptomatic patients, presumably harbouring good immunity spreading into individuals possessing not so robust immunity leading to increased morbidity and mortality.”
He further added, “We also observed a very high predominance of D614G spike protein mutation, which now has been shown to be associated with higher infection rates of the virus.”
Bashyam added, “We have observed a relatively higher association between asymptomatic cases and viral load. However, this association is greatly dependent on multiple factors including the sample demography as well as overall immune health of the patient during sample collection.”
Satyajit Rath, from National Institute of Immunology (NII), New Delhi, said-
“All it tells us for public policy regarding COVID-19; I think, it is what we already should know, namely, that all the infections have some potential for transmission.”
The researchers, including from The Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics (CDFD) in Hyderabad advised on testing, asymptomatic primary and secondary contacts followed by surveillance.
Many eminent scientists and clinicians are vigorously advising the respective governments to make informed public health decisions. The extended heterogeneous population of India creates a difficulty to reckon the findings as compared to other Indian states.