No Significant COVID-19 Virus Mutations In India: Health Minister

New Delhi: Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan has said that the results on mutations and evolution of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in India will be available in early October and there haven’t been many variations yet.

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) is conducting large-scale sequencing of nationally representative strains of SARS-CoV-2 virus and so far the mutations are not significant or drastic.

Herd immunity would take time and needs to cover 70 per cent of the population, the Minister said and hence “the focus of the government is primarily towards putting together a strategy that combines containment and hospital management”.

He also pointed out that researches were being conducted on vaccines and drugs based on alternative medicines.

AYUSH Ministry along with the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and ICMR have developed research protocols validating the claims of various AYUSH practitioners for COVID-19 solutions. No formulation has been validated as a specific drug for the disease yet.