The Centre on Friday said the Lambda variant of Covid-19 is not found in India at present, but people should be cautious of such variant. The government is closely monitoring the global landscape of this new Covid-19 strain.
Lambda variant of coronavirus was first detected in Peru and then spread to 30 countries, including several European countries.
NITI Aayog member, Dr VK Paul at a weekly press conference said, “we should be watchful of such variants. As of now, there is no evidence that this variant has been identified in India.”
If the variant had entered India, it would have been detected by INSACOG (The Indian SARS-CoV-2 Consortium of Genomics), he said.
Known as the seventh and newest “variant of interest”, the World Health Organization designated the Lambda variant on June 14.
First reported in Peru, this new variant is now responsible for almost 82 percent of the Covid-19 cases in Peru. The Malaysian health ministry said this variant is turning out to be more deadlier than Delta, the variant which was responsible for India’s second wave and is driving the ongoing wave of the pandemic around the globe. The Lambda variant has been detected even in the United Kingdom.
