Double mutant of coronavirus fast replacing dominant N440K variant in south India: Scientists

New Delhi, May 4

The B.1.617 variant of the coronavirus, also known as the double mutant, is fast replacing the N440K variant in south India, scientists at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) said on Tuesday.

Former CCMB director Rakesh Mishra said the double mutant is now a dominant variant in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and now Telangana.

After an exhaustive analysis of 5,000 variants earlier this year, the CCMB had found that N440K is spreading a lot more in the southern states compared to the other variants.

But B.1.617 is fast replacing N440K, including in Kerala, Divya Tej Sowpati, a scientist with the CCMB, said.

“Lineages with #N440K are NOT the dominant ones in the second wave of #Covid19inIndia. While N440K was indeed a mutation of concern in South India during and after the first wave, current data shows that it is essentially replaced by new VoCs such as #B1617 and #B117.

“In KL, though not much data is available on GISAID, we can see from https://genescov2.genomes.in that B.1.1.7 is increasing at present, whereas N440K is present in