Experts are planning to meet soon to discuss details on restructuring, the person said, without divulging more information.
The Indian SARS-CoV2 Consortium on Genomics (Insacog) was set up in December 2020 by the department of biotechnology as part of a nationwide effort to sequence Covid-19 samples. It had a mandate to sequence 5% of all samples from Covid patients to detect patterns of infection.
Insacog initially comprised just ten government laboratories. However, as the Covid-19 cases began to rise, it expanded to 38 centres, including private laboratories, over a year. Once the samples were collected, they were sent to consortium laboratories where new sequences were examined for mutations or any changes in the genome of the virus so as to make health interventions accordingly.
“The laboratories continue to be on alert; samples are tested to check mutations. But some changes are required. We will see whether there is a need to continue at this extent or only few laboratories should be assigned for the sampling,” the person cited earlier said. “We will discuss this soon and come to a conclusion.”
He said the recent sequencing shows that all new variants are circulating in the country but there is “no clustering”. “It’s not just Covid, there are an increasing number of cases of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and seasonal flu. The symptoms of all three-Covid, RSV and flu-are similar and cannot be differentiated clinically, unless tested,” said another person.Data from the genome sequencing laboratories is being analysed as per the field data trends to study the linkages, if any, between the genomic variants and epidemiological trends. This helps to understand super spreader events, outbreaks and strengthen public health interventions across the country to help in breaking the chains of transmission.
