India saw it’s COVID-19 tally rise sharply over the past week — with more than 3,700 actives cases by Sunday evening. The country has seen cases rise by more than 1,200% in a week as new and more infection variants of the Omicron strain spread through the country. Kerala, Maharashtra and Delhi have emerged as the worst-affected states with hundreds testing positive over the past few days.
Data shared by the Health Ministry on Sunday morning indicated that there were currently 3758 active cases in the country — with 28 people passing away from COVID-19 since January. Kerala led the list with 1400 cases while Maharashtra was a distant second with 485 active infections. State-level data released on Sunday evening noted a continued rise in cases with Maharashtra now clocking an active case tally of 506 COVID-19 infections.
What is driving the surge in cases?
According to the Indian Council of Medical Research, genome sequencing of recent samples has shown the emergence of several new COVID-19 strains. These are subsets of the Omicron variant that led the second wave of cases across India in 2022. Health officials confirmed that the three new sub-variants were LF.7, XFG, JN.1 and NB.1.8.1 — one of which has been dubbed a ‘variant under monitoring’ by the World Health Organization.
“NB.1.8.1 has been designated a SARS-CoV-2 variant under monitoring (VUM) with increasing proportions globally, while LP.8.1 is starting to decline. Considering the available evidence, the additional public health risk posed by NB.1.8.1 is evaluated as low at the global level. Currently approved COVID-19 vaccines are expected to remain effective to this variant against symptomatic and severe disease,” read a risk evaluation analysis released by WHO in late May.
Health authorities however insist that there is no need for panic at this point of tme since the severity of infections is “generally mild” in recent weeks.