The latest update from the WHO shows that between June 24 and July 21, an average of 17,358 Covid samples were tested for SARS-CoV-2 per week in 85 countries. India reported 908 new Covid-19 cases and two deaths between June and July this year.

India needs to prepare for another Covid-19 outbreak, an expert said on Friday amid rising cases in several countries, including the US and South Korea. According to estimates by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 25 states in the country are experiencing an increase in Covid infections. South Korea is also experiencing an outbreak with a large number of associated hospitalizations.

The latest update from the World Health Organization (WHO) shows that between June 24 and July 21, an average of 17,358 Covid samples were tested for SARS-CoV-2 per week in 85 countries. India reported 908 new cases of Covid-19 and two deaths between June and July this year, according to the WHO. Professor Deepak Sehgal, a virologist at Shiv Nadar University in Noida, told IANS, “Although the situation in India is not as severe as in other countries, we really need to be prepared for it.”

“The virus has definitely re-emerged. And the WHO reported that the incidence of the virus has increased by about 26 percent and by 11 percent. And that is very worrying,” he added. The recent outbreak has been driven by KP variants — belonging to the Omicron genus. Omicron was highly infectious and showed excellent immunity. First introduced globally in January, the KP.2 is a descendant of Omicron's JN.1. In India, KP.2 was first detected in Odisha in December 2023.

The KP strain is a derivative of the Omicron type with three mutations in the spike region, Mr. Sehgal said. Data from INSACOG (Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium) shows that this variant is already in circulation in India. KP.x — which includes KP.3.1.1 and its relatives such as FLiRT variants or KP.2 — accounted for nearly 39 percent of all Covid sequence samples in India collected in the last week of July.

Meanwhile, the Union Health Ministry's Covid Dashboard showed that several states in India are seeing a rise in Covid cases – with 279 active cases. The states of Assam, New Delhi, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh are witnessing an increase in cases. According to Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and National Center for Disease Control (NCDC), highly transmissible

KP.1 and KP.2 strains developed from the JN.1 Omicron variant are responsible for the rise in Covid cases in India. However, there has been no increase in hospitalizations or severity of illness so far, Union Health Minister JP Nadda informed Parliament in July. Mr. Sehgal said that “the government has done surveillance especially with genome sequencing”. Efforts are also being made to make vaccines and booster doses readily available to the population. “We may have a booster vaccine dose that will really help. Otherwise, we need to mitigate many risks in the future,” the expert said.

(Inputs: IANS)