Karnataka confirms case of Eta COVID variant in the state

A case of Eta variant of SARS-COV-2 was confirmed in Karnataka’s Mangaluru on Thursday in a sample taken four months ago. The Eta variant (B.1.525) was detected in a Mangaluru man who had travelled to Qatar.

This is not the first case of Eta variant in the state, the Times of India quoted Dr V Ravi, state nodal officer and chairman of Committee for Covid-19 Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS). It was first reported in April 2020 when the variant was detected in two samples at Nimhans’ virology lab through genomic sequencing in April 2020 and belonged to patients from Mangaluru, he said.

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Eta variant was first identified in United Kingdom and Nigeria in December last year.

The nomenclature Eta was given in June 2021 by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Eta has been categorised as a ‘variant of interest’, which according to the WHO means the strain has been “identified to cause significant community transmission or multiple COVID-19 clusters, in multiple countries with increasing relative prevalence alongside increasing number of cases over time, or other apparent epidemiological impacts to suggest an emerging risk to global public health."

The Eta variant does not carry the same N501Y mutation found in Alpha, Beta and Gamma, but carries the same E484K-mutation as found in the Gamma, Zeta, and Beta variants.

The strain also carries the same deletion of the amino acids histidine and valine in positions 69 and 70, as found in Alpha, N439K variant (B.1.141 and B.1.258) and Y453F variant.

According to reports, this variant is different from all other variants as it has both E484K and F888L mutations.

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 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.

India has reported 39,070 new cases and 491 deaths in the last 24 hours as per the health ministry’s August 8 update.

The nationwide tally stands at 31,934,455, while the death toll climbed to 4,27,862. The active cases declined to 4,06,822 in the said time period, according to data released by the ministry at 8am.

The country's recovery rate was recorded at 97.39. The number of active cases fell by 5331. Kerala remains the top contributor with daily cases breaching the 20,000-mark again.