ICMR planning research on mutation of SAARS-CoV2 in India

NEW DELHI: In a bid to build an effective vaccine to fight the coronavirus, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) is planning to study the genome sequence of SARS-CoV2 strain to find out whether the virus has undergone mutation while spreading within the country.

According to a senior scientist of ICMR, determining whether the virus has mutated or not over two months of spreading into the country it will help in ensuring the effectiveness of a potential vaccine.

The study, however, can begin after the lockdown will be lifted since due to lockdown there are difficulties involved in transporting the virus samples from different parts of county added the scientist.

As per Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID), in India, the maximum difference in novel coronavirus strain has been found between 0.2 to 0.9 per cent as compared to the strains in other countries, said another scientist from the organisation.

As per the current data, GISAID has received over 7,000 complete genome sequence of SARC-CoV2 deposited by various clinical laboratories across the world where they have classified the virus based on their mutations.

Due to this, Indian scientist are also suspecting different strains of the virus have entered the country from people who came back from different regions of the world.

So far, three strains of the virus have been traced in India. One was from Wuhan, and the other two from Italy and Iran. The virus sequence collected from patients from Iran and China were similar.

Dr Raman R Gangakhedkar, Head of Epidemiology and Communicable Diseases at ICMR said, “It will take us time to determine the predominant quasi-species of the novel coronavirus in the country. But the mutation are not likely to make vaccine ineffective, as all type of mutated sub virus has the same enzymes. Also, the virus is present for around three months in India and it is not mutating very fast.”

In India, six pharma companies are working on developing a vaccine for COVID-19, and nearly 70 ‘vaccine candidates’ are being tested out of which three are being tested on human. The scientist, however, claimed that a vaccine for SAARS-CoV2 is unlikely to be ready for mass use before 2021.