COVID-19 News: Highly Transmissible JN.1 Is Now the Dominant Strain In India Yet Only 765 New Cases In The Last 24 Hours! Is JN.1 Racist Or Is India Lying?
Nikhil Prasad Fact checked by:Thailand Medical News Team Jan 08, 2024 6 months, 2 weeks, 5 days, 6 hours, 58 minutes ago
COVID-19 News: India, a nation with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, stands at the crossroads of an intriguing paradox in the ongoing battle against COVID-19. Despite the emergence and dominance of the highly transmissible JN.1 variant, classified as a variant of interest by the World Health Organization (WHO), the daily reported cases hover around 300 to 750 for the last two weeks This anomaly has prompted questions regarding the accuracy of reported figures, the virus's behavior in India, and the effectiveness of the country's containment strategies.
India reports only small number of JN.1 infections
In the Europe and North America, daily caseloads of JN.1 infections are in the thousands and hospitals and ICUs there are currently overwhelmed but in India, daily
COVID-19 News updates shows daily infection levels of only a few hundred despite social media posts by its citizens showing many sick individuals and hospitals full of patients with severe pneumonia!
Health authorities in India do not divulge the actual daily COVID-19 testing rates and COVID-19 positivity rates…indicating that possible foul play in the daily reported COVID-19 statistics.
It is also very unlikely that the highly transmissible JN.1 variant is displaying any selective racial preferences when it is seeking out human host!
The Dominance of JN.1 Variant
The latest data from the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (Insacog) has revealed that the JN.1 variant has become the predominant strain across most regions in India.
https://inda.rcb.ac.in/insacog/statreportlineagegraph
In the last week of December, JN.1 cases accounted for 83.3 per cent of all COVID-19 positive samples at Insacog labs in the northern region. The figure for the western region was 73.1 per cent.
A notable exception lies in the eastern part of the country, where Odisha and West Bengal have reported instances of the variant. The prevalence is most pronounced in the South, followed by the North and West. Surprisingly, the East reports only 28.6% of positive samples as JN.1, raising questions about regional variations in susceptibility or reporting practices.
Geographical Spread and Monthly Distribution
Insacog's genomic sequencing indicates that JN.1 cases have witnessed a substantial surge in numbers, particularly in December 2023. Out of the 536 confirmed JN.1 cases, 503 were detected in samples collected in December. The first identified case was a 79-year-old woman in Kerala, confirming the presence of the JN.1 variant on December 17. Since then, the variant has spread across 12 states and union territories, with Kerala reporting the highest number of cases at 154, followed by Maharashtra (111), Gujarat (76), and several other regions with varying caseloads.
Zonal Distribution and Global Presence
The zonal distribution of
JN.1 cases underscores its impact on almost all regions of the country, with the exception of the East. Bengal and Odisha are the only states in the East reporting JN.1 cases. Globally, the JN.1 variant was first identified in Luxembourg, and its presence has now been detected in over 40 countries. The World Health Organization declared JN.1 a variant of interest in December 2023, emphasizing its significance on the global stage.
Characteristics and Insights from Experts
Experts shed light on the unique attributes of the JN.1 variant, describing it as a highly infectious descendant of the Omicron subvariant BA.2.86 or Pirola. Dr Ambarish Joshi, a senior consultant in pulmonary and sleep medicine at Primus Super Speciality Hospital, highlighted its distinctiveness with a single new spike mutation compared to Omicron. This feature allows JN.1 to easily evade the immune response, making it highly infectious and capable of affecting individuals at all stages of life. Common symptoms include fever, cough, cold, headache, gastrointestinal disorders, and breathing issues.
Dr Tushar Tayal, a consultant in the department of internal medicine at CK Birla Hospital, emphasized the likelihood of an increase in cases due to favorable weather conditions for influenza-like illnesses and the higher chances of transmission in confined spaces.
Current COVID-19 Scenario in India
Recent data indicates a spike in daily cases, with 756 new infections reported in the last 24 hours. There was also 5 reported COVID-19 Deaths.
https://www.mygov.in/covid-19/
While this slight increases were attributed to the JN.1 variant, Indian health officials claimed that there is no significant surge in hospitalizations or deaths! The highest single-day spike since December 5, 2023, occurred on December 31, 2023, with 841 new cases.
Recent weeks have seen a rise in daily cases, with 756 new infections pushing the active case count to 4,049 as of Sunday. The country also recorded five deaths in 24 hours: two in Kerala, two in Maharashtra, and one in India-held Kashmir, as of 8am.
In conclusion, we can be rest assured that we are never going to know the real COVID-19 situation in India. But we need to keep an eye as to what is developing in India that gave us the Delta variant.
Already there are some concerns of worrisome sub-lineages and variants possibly emerging in India.
https://www.thailandmedical.news/news/breaking-covid-19-news-potentially-even-more-immune-evasive-and-virulent-spawns-of-jn-1-discovered-in-india-expect-more-such-strains-from-india
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COVID-19 News, keep on logging to Thailand Medical News.
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