Headache, runny nose main symptoms of Delta variant infection
Source: Chronicle News Service

Imphal, June 19 2021: Headache and runny nose are said to be among the top symptoms of Covid-19 infection caused by the Delta variant of the virus, which is said to be 40 per cent more transmissible than the Alpha variant that originated from UK.

The Delta variant or B.1.617.2 is formed by merging of two mutations of a virus strain and it contains mutations from two variants namely E484Q and L452R.It was first discovered in Maharashtra in December last year.

The variant can easily break into the human immune system and invade organs.

It can also alter the structure of its spike protein making it more efficient in attaching to human host cells and multiply quickly thereby doing more damage to the human body than the original Covid-19 strain.

While fever, cough, fatigue and loss of sense of smell and taste remain some of the common symptoms in mild infections, there have been some new symptoms that have emerged due to the involvement of the new variants of the virus.

According to lead researcher of UK's Zoe Covid Symptom Study Professor Tim Spector, people who have contracted the Delta Variant experience symptoms that feel "more like a bad cold." people might think they have just got some sort of seasonal cold and they end up spreading it around to six other people.

Since the start of May, the number one symptom reported among confirmed infection has been headache, followed by sore throat, runny nose, and fever.

"Cough is rarer and we don't even see loss of smell coming up in the top ten anymore," said Prof Tim Spector.

Younger people, who are already less likely to develop severe illness, may be more likely to mistake such symptoms for a bad cold, and not self-isolate, further enhancing Delta's spread, Spector said.

As of June 16, the variant, which fuelled the second wave of the pandemic in India, has reached 80 countries.

It accounts for over 10 per cent of the new cases in the US and more than 90 per cent in UK.

The WHO declared Delta variant as a Variant of Concern in May.

There are four strains of the virus, which WHO declared as Variants of Concern, namely Alpha (first detected in UK), Beta (South Africa), Gamma (Brazil) and Delta (India).

There are also seven strains of the virus which the WHO designated as Variant of Interest and they are Epsilon, Zeta, Eta, Theta, Iota, Kappa and Lambda.

Lambda is the latest variant detected in Peru on June 14 for the first time.

The Delta variant is not only more transmissible and induces more severe symptoms, but also said to cause breakthrough cases (infection even after two doses of vaccines).

Experts believe that two key mutations in Delta help the strain evade antibodies from vaccination.

According to Public Health England, Astrazeneca vaccine provides 33 per cent protection against Delta variant after first shot (after 28 days of vaccination), and 67 per cent protection against symptomatic disease and 92 per cent against hospitalisation.

Increased transmissibility is an exponential threat.

If a virus that could previously infect three people on average can now infect four, it looks like a small increase.

Yet, if you start with just two infected people in both scenarios, just 10 iterations later, the former will have caused about 40,000 cases while the latter will be more than 524,000, a nearly 13fold difference, several studies suggested.

In the context of Manipur, the government is heavily relying on RAT for identifying Covid positive cases.

A study conducted by The People's Chronicle reveals that apart from the drawbacks of RAT, one major cause of setback in RAT is that there are still hundreds of thousands of people who somehow believe that RAT will bring out positive results if they have common cold, seasonal flu, or even sinusitis.

As a result, at least two third of the total population of any locality will not come out for voluntary testing.

In many cases, those with cold or flu symptoms will stay back and send out a healthy person from the family for testing, thus resulting in missed cases.

At the same time, many of the new variants of the contagion are said to have spike protein deletion capabilities, which increase the chances of false negative results even in PCR based test.

Considering the fact that Delta variant fuelled the second wave of the pandemic in India, the state government delayed in taking up genome sequencing exercise.

In the present scenario, the government needs to increase testing through PCR based tests.

There is strong need to strengthen the contact tracing measures by utilising government machineries instead of voluntary exercise by local clubs, ensure all those in the contact tracing come out for testing, and repeat testing for negative RAT results of primary contact through RTPCR.

The general public should also come out and get tested if they experience any mild symptom of common cold or flu, or if they believe that they might have come into contact with any positive cases.

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