‘Double mutant’ virus variant found

Description

Context: A unique “double mutant” coronavirus variant with a combination of mutations not seen anywhere else in the world has been found in India.

Details:

It is still to be established if this has any role to play in increased infectivity or in making COVID-19 more severe.
Genome sequencing of a section of virus samples by a consortium of 10 laboratories across the country, called the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Consortium on Genomics (INSACOG), revealed the presence of two mutations, E484Q and L452R
While the two mutations have been individually identified in other variants of SARS-CoV-2 globally and have been associated with a reduction in vaccine efficacy, their combined effect and biological implications have not yet been understood.
A government statement on Wednesday said 736 samples from across the country had so far been found to have UK lineage.
34 samples were found to have the “South African lineage”, and one had the “Brazilian lineage”.

Slow Genome sequencing:

India has the second highest number of people infected with the coronavirus during the epidemic.
But it has done very few genome sequences of the different variants in circulation.
This includes the sequencing of 10,787 samples since the government set up INSACOG (Indian SARS-CoV2 Consortium on Genomics) in December specifically for this purpose.
The stated objective of INSACOG is to sequence the samples from at least 5% of all the infected cases through a network of ten laboratories.The 19,092 samples that have sequenced till now form just 0.16% of that number.

Why it’s been slow:

One of the major reasons for the slow pace of genome sequencing has been a lack of funds. So far, no money has been allocated for INSACOG, although officials said approval for funds was now expected any day.
The laboratories have been using money from their own annual budgets to do the sequencing work. The cost is mainly of the chemical reagents that are required in the process.
States have not been proactively sending their samples to the laboratories for sequencing.