A newpossibly dangerous COVID triple-mutant found in India

A COVID triple-mutant found in India could be much more deadly, and may be resistant to existing vaccines Researchers are describing it as an "immune escape variant," as vaccinated people who were previously infected with COVID can be infected. Cheryl Teh Business Insider

As India contends with its second major wave of COVID cases and a double-mutated variant of the virus, it now faces a new threat — a triple-mutant variant.

Scientists found two triple-mutant varieties in patient samples in four states: Maharashtra, Delhi, West Bengal, and Chhattisgarh. Researchers in the country have dubbed it the "Bengal strain" and say it has the potential to be even more infectious than the double-mutant variant.

This is because three COVID variants have merged to form a new, possibly deadlier variant.

The Times of India spoke to Vinod Scaria, a researcher at the CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology in India, who said the triple-mutant was also an "immune escape variant" — a strain that helps the virus attach to human cells and hide from the immune system.

He added that it could have evolved from the double-mutant variant — which experts say is likely behind the recent surge of COVID in the country.

Sreedhar Chinnaswamy, a researcher from the National Institute of Biomedical Genomics in India, told the Times of India that the variant also carried the E484K mutation, a characteristic found in the variants first identified in South Africa and Brazil.

"In other words, you may not be safe from this variant even if you were previously infected by another strain, or even if you have been vaccinated," Chinnaswamy said.

Paul Tambyah, a professor of medicine at the National University of Singapore, said the good news is that there is no concrete evidence that the triple mutation is deadlier or more transmissible.