Coronavirus News Live Updates: India recorded 13,216 new coronavirus cases and 23 deaths in the last 24 hours, according to data released by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The number of active cases has risen to 68,108, while the daily positivity rate is 2.73%.
People infected with the earliest version of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, first identified in South Africa in November, may be vulnerable to reinfection with later versions of Omicron even if they have been vaccinated and boosted, new findings suggest.
Vaccinated patients with Omicron BA.1 breakthrough infections developed antibodies that could neutralize that virus plus the original SARS-CoV-2 virus, but the Omicron sublineages circulating now have mutations that allow them to evade those antibodies, researchers from China reported on Friday in Nature. Adolfo Garcia-Sastre, a microbiology and infectious disease's researcher at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, suggested that better protection might be seen with vaccines that target multiple strains of the virus or with intranasal vaccines that would increase protection from infection and transmission by generating immunity in the lining of the nose, where the virus first enters.
With the upward spiral of Covid - 19 cases in Mumbai, doctors are observing a rise in infection among young children and adolescents. One in 10 patients detected with the infection is under 20, according to data from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). But unlike the second wave, the severity is less, with a majority of patients remaining asymptomatic.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi continues to be under treatment at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in New Delhi after she developed a fungal infection in her lower respiratory tract following a Covid-19 infection, the party said.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
“She was immediately put under treatment and underwent a related follow-up procedure yesterday (Thursday) morning,” a statement from the All India Congress Committee (AICC) said Friday. “She is currently being treated for it along with other post-Covid symptoms. She continues to be under close observation and treatment,” it added.
India recorded 13,216 new Coronavirus cases and 23 deaths in the last 24 hours, according to data released by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
The number of active cases has risen to 68,108, while the daily positivity rate is 2.73%.
People infected with the earliest version of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, first identified in South Africa in November, may be vulnerable to reinfection with later versions of Omicron even if they have been vaccinated and boosted, new findings suggest.
Vaccinated patients with Omicron BA.1 breakthrough infections developed antibodies that could neutralise that virus plus the original SARS-CoV-2 virus, but the Omicron sublineages circulating now have mutations that allow them to evade those antibodies, researchers from China reported on Friday in Nature.
Omicron BA.2.12.1, which is presently causing most infections in the United States, and Omicron BA.5 and BA.4, which now account for more than 21% of new US cases, contain mutations not present in the BA.1 and BA.2 versions of Omicron.
Those newer sublineages "notably evade the neutralising antibodies elicited by SARS-CoV-2 infection and vaccination," the researchers found in test-tube experiments.
The monoclonal antibody drugs bebtelovimab from Eli Lilly and cilgavimab, a component of AstraZeneca's Evusheld, can still effectively neutralise BA.2.12.1 and BA.4/BA.5, the experiments also showed.
But vaccine boosters based on the BA.1 virus, such as those in development by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna, "may not achieve broad-spectrum protection against new Omicron variants," the researchers warned.
Out of 15,348 patients who contracted Covid-19 in Mumbai in the period June 6-16, a total of 1,640 or 10.6 per cent were children and young adults between the age of 0 and 19 years.
The coronavirus infection count in Maharashtra's Thane district rose by 957 to reach 7,18,047, an official said Saturday. These new cases were reported on Friday.
The virus claimed the lives of two persons during the day, which took the death toll in the district to 11,898, the official said, adding that the mortality rate stood at 1.67 per cent.
Over the past few days, the number of coronavirus positive cases has been rising in the district. On Thursday, it had reported 934 cases, a day after it saw 852 infections. (PTI)