Govt on alert as India reports Omicron, Delta co-infections

India has seen some cases of "mixed infections" where both Delta and Omicron strains of the coronavirus were found, people in the know told ET.

Insacog, the consortium tasked with genome sequencing in India, held a meeting on Friday to review the situation.

According to an Insacog member, the new Deltacron variant which has been seen in some countries has not been found so far in India. However, there were some cases of mixed infection due to the Delta and Omicron variants.

Insacog has looked very closely for the occurrence of Deltacron in the Indian setting. "There were some cases where the strain was not clear, and on a deeper analysis co-infection of Omicron and Delta virus was seen," said the member.

There were more than 10 such cases where the strain was not clear, he said.

Insacog has decided to intensify its vigil and conduct genome sequencing of at least 10,000 cases every week.

"To understand the pattern and how Covid-19 is behaving in the country, genome sequencing has been enhanced," said the person.

The World Health Organization had said that it was possible for an individual to be infected with different variants of SARS-CoV-2.

Insacog, or the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Consortium on Genomics, had earlier this week confirmed that Omicron had replaced Delta as the dominant strain of the coronavirus now causing Covid-19 in India.

According to Insacog, since February first week, Omicron was found in more than 95% of samples during genome sequencing. This suggests that "Delta has been taken over by Omicron", a government official had said.

Earlier they were seeing some other infections too including Delta, Beta and Delta Plus, but now, genome sequencing samples showed that Omicron had completely overtaken Delta, the official had said.

Insacog said that a revised sampling and sequencing strategy was being worked out to address genomic surveillance objectives in the wake of the changing scenario.