A case of the Eta varaint of Covid-19 was verified this week in Mangaluru, Karnataka, albeit the disease is not new, according to sources. A guy from Dubai was found Covid positive four months ago. His sample was sent to be sequenced, and the results were verified on Thursday. This is not a brand-new version in India.
Here is all you need to know:
- According to World Health Organization, Eta was first detected in December 2020. WHO does not have the name of any one country as the place where this variant was first documents.
- On March 17, 2021, Eta has been designated as a variant of interest.
- Mizoram in July this year had reported one case of Eta variant.
- Reports said this variant is different from all other variants as it has both E484K and F888L mutations.
- This is also not the first occurrence of Eta variant n Karnataka, health officials have said.
- Eta is not a variant of concern yet and continues to be a variant of interest along with Iota, Kappa and Lamda, while Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta continue to be the variants of concern.
The new finding does not add to the concerns of the third wave in the state as this is an old case, the result of which has come recently. Karnataka is witnessing a resurgence of Covid-19 cases since the last week of July. It has already put restrictions in place and has intensified border checking as bordering Kerala is experiencing a sudden rise in the number of daily Covid-19 cases.
The positivity rate in the state is below 2 per cent but the reproductive value of the infection in the state is 1.2, which indicates that every 100 infected people in the state are spreading the infection to another 120 people during the infectious period.
