Should You Worry About The New Deadly Strain Of Covid 19 Detected In Malaysia?

A deadlier strain of coronavirus has been detected in Malayasia which is 10 times more infectious. But can this strain pose a threat to India?

(Image: PTI)

New Delhi: On Monday reports came in about the discovery of a deadlier strain of Covid 19 in Malaysia. The new virus strain called 'D614G' earlier seen in other parts of Europe is deemed ten times more infectious. The news about the detection was also shared by the Director-General of Health Noor Hisham Abdullah in a Facebook post. According to the post, the mutation has been spotted in three cases from a cluster that apparently started when a restaurant owner and permanent resident returned to the country from India. The man had breached the mandatory 14-day home quarantine and since then sentenced to five months in prison and fined, as per the Bloomberg report. The same strain was detected in another cluster case that was caused by residents coming back from the Philippines.

But does India need to worry about the deadly strain?

In a report by PTI, Dr. V K Paul Member NITI Aayog, said that at the moment there are no evident threats from the strain.

"We have also seen the reports. At this moment, we have nothing to convey but we have made a note of it," said Paul in the report.

In fact,  according to the Union Health Ministry daily Covid 19 cases and deaths caused due to coronavirus seems to be on a decline. Secretary in the Union Health Ministry Rajesh Bhushan said during a press briefing that in spite of a sustained level of 7-8 lakh coronavirus tests a day, the positivity rate has come down from 10.03 percent in the first week of July to 7.72 percent over the last seven days. But he also warned that people have to continue adhereing to safety measures. "The daily new cases from August 13 are down from over 64,000 to 55,079 now. There is a declining trend. But five days are a very short span in the context of a pandemic and there is no room for laxity on precautionary measures, containment, testing and surveillance,” said Bhushan. He also added that "Absolute deaths (per day) have also declined from 1,007 on August 13 to 876 on August 17. These two parameters do give us some satisfaction but there is no reason for us to slacken our guard". Testing has also been ramped in the country and according to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) the total tests that have been done till August 18 are 3,17,42,782. "The number of COVID-19 testing per day has gone up to 9 lakh per day which is remarkable. Testing is the key to disease containment and reducing mortality and improving outcome," said Paul in the report highlighting that reducing mortality rate and increase in recovery rate is "reassuring" and are "positive signals" indicating that the COVID-19 pandemic is under check. At present, the data by the Health Ministry shows that the total number of coronavirus cases in India has reached 27,67,274 and the active cases are 676514. The death rate has reached 52889.