The timing of the increase in B.1.617 coincides well with the second waves seen in the respective states," finds Divya Tej Sowpati of CCMB.
According to him, in Maharastra, one of the worst-affected states in the country, the second wave started almost a month and half earlier compared to the four southern states, along with the explosion of B.1.617 at the expense of lineages with the mutation N440K.
"In Kerala, though not much data is available on GISAID, we can see from genescov2.genomes.in that B.1.1.7 is increasing at present, whereas N440K is present in less than 20 per cent of the genomes," he further added.
Earlier, CCMB scientists had found that the N440K variant produced ten times higher infectious viral titers than a prevalent A2a strain, and over 1,000 folds higher titers than a much less prevalent A3i strain prototype in Caco2 cells.
However, this may not be a matter of concern, because how a virus behaves in cell culture under controlled settings and no competition, may not be the same in a complicated pandemic scenario.
Earlier, by June 2020, a variant with D614G substitution had become the predominant strain. Later, new variants were identified across the world, such as the B.1.1.7 lineage (UK), P.1 lineage (Brazil), and B.1.351 (South Africa).
