Highly transmissible Delta Plus variant has now reached the Northeastern region of the country too with Tripura, for the first time, reporting 138 cases of the deadly variant of Covid-19.
At least 90 per cent of samples in Tripura that were sent for genome sequencing have been found to be containing the highly transmissible Delta Plus variant, said a top state official. So far cass ofDelta Plus had been reported from Delhi, Maharashtra, Guajarat, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh besides a few other States.
However, hours after the announcement confusion prevailed over the variant with the centre claiming that it was the Delta variant that was found in these samples.
“About 151 samples were sent to a government laboratory in West Bengal. As many as 138 or 90 per cent of these samples have found to contain the Delta plus variant,” Dr Deep Debbarma, COVID nodal officer of Tripura said, according to various reports.
However, a senior official in the Union Health Ministry challenged the States’s claim saying that it was the Delta variant that was detected in these samples. He also said that 161 cases of the Delta Plus variant have been reported in the country so far.
The State Government official has also claimed that while 10 samples had Delta variants, three contained Alpha variants.
“115 of the samples that contained the Delta Plus variants were found in west district alone while 8 samples in Sepahijala district, Gomati district (5 samples), Unakoti district (4 samples) and 2 each in North and South districts contained Delta Plus variant,” he said.