‘Aggressive measures needed’: India discovers 240 new Covid-19 strains

RT.com, 22 Feb, 2021 - A whopping 240 mutated coronavirus strains have been discovered across India, health officials have said, warning that some of them may potentially be more infectious, and may even be capable of evading immune response altogether.

The new Covid-19 strains are likely behind the sudden spike of new cases in several Indian states, including Maharashtra – the second most populous state housing the city of Mumbai – a member of the regional Covid-19 task force, Shahshank Joshi, told NDTV. He added that a total of around 240 new virus variants have been discovered across the country. Some of the new variants could be highly transmissible or potentially more dangerous, Randeep Guleria, the head of the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and also a member of the Maharashtra task force, has warned. Some virus strains have an immunity “escape mechanism” that could cause re-infection in people who already developed anti-bodies to Covid-19 through battling the disease or getting a vaccine, he told the Indian broadcaster.