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Residents take pictures of a paper lantern released with Covid-19 guidelines in Kolkata on Tuesday. (AFP/Yonhap News)

India has reported cases of infection with Delta Plus, a subvariant resulting from a mutation to the Delta variant of the coronavirus. As the highly infectious Delta virus spreads around the world, the appearance of a new mutation is prompting concerns.

India’s Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said in a press briefing on Wednesday that 22 cases of a new version of the Delta variant of the COVID-19 virus had been detected in Maharashtra and two other states and that those cases were being closely followed and monitored, German news agency Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported.

India has suffered heavily during the COVID-19 pandemic. It has close to 30 million confirmed cases of the disease, the second highest in the world, and has reported more than 389,000 deaths. Under those circumstances, the detection of a new viral variant is of huge interest.

Initially, the Indian government defined Delta Plus as a “variant of interest,” but a few hours later, it raised its risk assessment to a “variant of concern.”

Delta Plus adds another mutation to the Delta variant, which was already over 60% more contagious than the original coronavirus.

The Hindustan Times quoted health officials as saying that the Delta Plus variant had “increased transmissibility” and “stronger binding to receptors of lung cells.”

Reports say that an assessment of Delta Plus’s exact transmissibility and deadliness is currently underway. Bhushan, the health secretary, said that researchers are carefully examining correlations in clinical data about Delta Plus and that the results will be shared when they become available.

The Hindustan Times reported that Delta Plus has been found in nine countries, including the US, the UK, Portugal, Switzerland, Japan, Poland, Nepal, China, and Russia.

The South Korean disease control authorities are also keeping a close eye on Delta Plus.

“We assess the public health impact [of virus variants] in three areas: whether they have become more infectious than the original virus, whether they have increased the severity [of cases], and whether they’ve reduced vaccine efficacy through immune evasion,” said Park Young-joon, head of epidemiological research at Korea’s Central Disease Control Headquarters.

Park had been asked to assess the risk of Delta Plus relative to the original Delta variant during the daily press briefing on Wednesday.

“Currently, a virus with certain changes has apparently been identified. Our position is that we should closely monitor its impact, given the impact of the original Delta variant. More monitoring will be necessary before we can provide a more detailed risk assessment,” Park said.

By Park Byong-su, senior staff writer

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