New variant of coronavirus found in Patna
Highlights
- the new variant of Omicron was found at Patna's Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences
- The new variant BA.12 is 10 times more dangerous than BA.2
- The BA.12 variant was first detected in the United States
Covid-19 new variant: A new variant of the novel coronavirus, BA.12, was found in Bihar's Patna on Thursday. According to the state's health department, the new variant of Omicron was found in the Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (IGIMS).
BA.12 is 10 times more dangerous than BA.2 which was detected during the third wave of coronavirus in the country.
Prof Dr. Namrata Kumari, the HOD of microbiology department of IGIMS, said, "Keeping in view the rising COVID cases, we had started genome sequencing of samples of Omicron variant of corona. There were 13 samples tested and one of them had BA.12 strains. The remaining 12 samples have BA.2 strains."
"We have asked the authority for contact tracing of all the positive samples of Omicron. The BA.12 variant is 10 time more dangerous than BA.2. Though, there is no need to worry. Precaution is required here to protect from it," she said.
The BA.12 variant was first detected in the United States.
Two to three cases were detected in Delhi and now one case has surfaced in Patna.
COVID-19 situation in India
India on Thursday reported 3,303 fresh COVID-19 cases that took its tally to 4,30,68,799, while the active cases increased to 16,980, according to Union health ministry data.
The daily cases crossed the 3,000-mark after 46 days.
The death toll due to COVID-19 climbed to 5,23,693 with 39 more fatalities, the data updated at 8 am stated.
The active cases comprise 0.04 per cent of the total infections. The national COVID-19 recovery rate stood at 98.74 per cent, the ministry said.
An increase of 701 cases has been recorded in the active COVID-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours.
(With inputs from IANS)
Also Read | New Omicron sub-variants BA.4, BA.5 detected in Africa, Europe
