Too early to call new Covid variant more lethal, transmissible: ICMR

The variant has not been detected in India yet

Structural changes in the heavily mutated Covid variant, first detected in South Africa, need not be interpreted as lethal or highly transmissible, said the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Friday, a day after the government called for rigorous testing of travellers from at-risk countries.

Samiran Panda, head of the Epidemiology and Infectious diseases at ICMR, told Business Standard, “Mutations are nothing new. It is the number of changes in the receptor binding domain that has drawn so much attention... Cluster infections have not been observed yet.” 

Panda said the variant — identified as B.1.1.529 — needed to be