A medical worker works on a sample after administering a nasal swab to a patient at a COVID-19 testing centre. Photo: Reuters/Pascal Rossignol
Agartala: An apparent communication gap between the Tripura government and the Centre has left the state wondering if it has cases of the ‘delta plus’ variant of the novel coronavirus.
On July 9, the Tripura government imposed a weekend curfew and extended restrictions across the state until July 17, after it reported 138 cases of the delta plus variant, causing serious concern.
Health officials in a press conference said that a total of 152 samples were sent for sequencing at the National Institute of Biomedical Genomics, Kalyani, in West Bengal. Among them, more than 90% of the samples were reportedly of the delta plus variant. The variant was found not just in West Tripura, where a large number of COVID-19 cases have been reported, but even in other districts, the officials said.
Dr Tapan Majumder, head of the microbiology department of Agartala Government Medical College, had said that a total of 138 cases of the delta plus variant, 10 cases of the delta variant and three cases of the alpha variant had been identified among the samples.
And of the 138 instances of the delta plus variant, 115 were from the West Tripura district, eight from Sepahijala, five from Gomati, four from Unakoti, two each from South Tripura and North Tripura, and one each from Khowai and Dhalai districts.
Soon after the announcement was made, revenue secretary Tanushree Debbarma imposed a ‘weekend lockdown’ until 6 am on July 12.
Centre’s clarification
Two days after the state announced 138 cases of the delta plus variant, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said in a July 11 press release that the delta plus variant had not been identified at all in samples from the state.
The release said that while three cases of the alpha variant (B.1.1.7) and 11 cases of the Kappa variant (B.1.617.1) had indeed been found among the Tripura samples, it said 138 samples had tested positive for the delta variant – not the delta plus variant. The delta variant is B.1.617.2. The delta plus is B.1.617.2.1, a ‘descendant’ of the delta variant.
A health official from the Tripura government told The Wire on condition of anonymity that an earlier press release issued by the Press Information Bureau (PIB) had caused the confusion.
“On June 28, the PIB issued a press release on the delta plus variant, where they had mentioned ‘B.1.617.2’ as the nomenclature for the delta plus variant. After our samples came, the same nomenclature was used. But now they have informed us that this is not the delta plus variant and is instead the delta variant.”
The June 28 press release from PIB called B.1.617 the delta variant (note the missing ‘.2’).
Tripura chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb, who is also the health minister, had said from time to time “the parameters of the virus change”. He added, “On this basis, the government of India has clarified the matter through PIB. The Government of India is monitoring the whole COVID-19 situation and we are unitedly following it.”