Omicron BA.5 occurs in 10% of cases but is mild, says NTAGI, with jabs 2 bn . let’s cross

“As per provisional reports till 1 pm today, a total of 2,00,015,631 doses have been given across the country. This has been achieved through 2,63,26,111 sessions,” the Union Health Ministry said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi called the vaccination campaign “unique in scale and speed”.

Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya also congratulated the country and said that this extraordinary achievement will be recorded in history.

The development comes after government experts said the Omicron BA.5 sub-lineage, which is growing in the US and Europe, has been found in 10% of patients in India. But the symptoms are mild, although it has been prevalent for the last two months.

Scientists from NTAGI and the Department of Biotechnology said that the prevalence of the Ba.4 sub-lineage is also increasing but much more slowly than that of the Ba.5.

He said that the most prominent sub-variant is BA.2, which accounts for about 85% of cases, and its sub-variant is BA.2.38.

For the past one month, India has seen a steady rise in Covid-19 cases, reporting over 20,528 cases and 49 deaths in the last 24 hours.

“Currently, we don’t have to worry because there has been no increase in hospitalizations or deaths from Omicron. For example, BA.5 has become dominant in America and Europe, but in India, it has been around for more than two months and with BA.4 the prevalence is around 10%. It is not spreading fast. At present, 85% is BA.2 and its sub-lineage and major BA.2 sub-lineage is currently BA.2.38,” said Dr NK Arora, Chairman, National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization Group’s Covid-19 Working Group (NTAGI). Told.

According to Johns Hopkins University’s COVID-19 update, the US is currently witnessing community transmission of BA.5.

“Around 20,000 new Covid cases a day is very small for a country like India. And many of them are still very localized. So, there is no cause for concern; “This should be a reason for caution,” said Rajesh Gokhale, secretary, Department of Biotechnology.

“As far as BA.5 is concerned, we have BA.5 sequences of patients who were hospitalized some time ago, but they were not severe cases and (who) had no major symptoms. In my opinion, at present there is no serious cause for concern and that is why the government has also introduced free booster dose vaccination for all persons above the age of 18 years.”

Gokhale appealed to the people to continue following the appropriate COVID-19 practices, wearing masks and completing the vaccination dose.

According to the Health Ministry, around 17,790 patients have recovered from the disease in the last 24 hours. India has so far conducted over 869 million COVID tests, including 392,569 in the last 24 hours.

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