India’s Covid-19 Subvariant JN.1 Tally Rises To 162, Highest Cases From Kerala
India has recorded a total of 162 cases of Covid-19 sub-variant JN.1, with the highest number of infections reported from Kerala, according to the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium’s (INSACOG) data on Friday.
While Kerala has reported 83 cases, Gujarat recorded 34, Goa recorded 18, Karnataka has eight cases, Maharashtra reported seven, Rajasthan saw five, Tamil Nadu saw four, while Telangana and Delhi reported two and one cases respectively.
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Several states have been reporting an increase in the number of Covid cases over the last few weeks. Nine states and union territories have so far detected the presence of the JN.1 sub-variant of the virus in the country.
According to the INSACOG’s data, 145 cases of JN.1 were recorded in December, while 17 such cases were detected in November.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has classified JN.1 as a separate ‘variant of interest’ given its rapidly-increasing spread but said it poses a “low” global public health risk. As of December 16, the WHO reported 7,344 cases of Covid-19 JN.1 subvariant from 41 countries.
Ahead of the New Year’s celebrations, the Centre has asked the states and Union territories to maintain a constant and close watch on the rising cases on JN.1. Earlier this week, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi also issued guidelines for Covid-19 suspected or positive cases that will be reported at hospitals.
According to former WHO chief scientist Dr Soumya Swaminathan, the JN.1 variant is more transmissible and infectious, but the public health risk is still low. “We all have immunity now because of the vaccines and the natural infections, we’ve had in the past, and that immunity still seems to be quite strong. It’s still protecting most of us from getting severely ill. What we are seeing now is a surge of infections and because the testing has been stepped up in the recent few days, as well as the genomics surveillance…the more we test, the more we are going to detect, and also we’re going to find more JN.1 variant in the country,” she told ANI.
Meanwhile, India on Friday reported 797 new infections in 24 hours, the highest in 225 days. According to the health ministry data, the active cases are at 4,091. Five new deaths due to Covid have been recorded – two from Kerala and one each from Maharashtra, Puducherry, and Tamil Nadu.