No spread of Covid-19 variants in Bengaluru so far, shows sewage survey

BENGALURU: The Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) has revealed that so far, there is no sign of Covid spreading in the city as per the sewage water survey report.

The TAC members had sent sewage samples from 15 localities in the city to the lab for testing to detect Covid variants. The sewage survey report has revealed that there is no sign of Covid spreading among the people.

TAC sent sewage samples of 15 areas to find Covid-19 variants.

“We conducted a sewage survey as per the recommendations in order to identify Covid-19 variants. The Infectious Diseases Research Foundation has conducted a sewage survey in 15 areas in 12 wards since June for Covid variants. They have tested 627 samples and 33 per cent of the samples have tested positive”, said Dr M K Sudarshan, chairman of the Technical Advisory Committee.

“For the past five weeks, there have been no signs of the Covid virus in any of the samples. We’ve been doing this on our own initiative because Bengaluru is the Covid epicentre in the state and people are refusing to undergo testing”, he added.

“During October 2019, experts and the WHO were talking about the pandemic, but slowly, the Covid cases started to increase by December in China. In March 2020, almost every country was under lockdown due to Covid. Again, the world has started to talk about Covid cases in China. We cannot deny the severity of the pandemic when we discuss it with other international experts. We have to keep an eye on new Covid variants and we have to continuously conduct genomic surveys. Experts are discussing a recombinant virus where two viral genomes co-infect and produce a new one”, pointed out Dr Vishal, a member of the Genomic Sequencing Committee.

Dr Vishal, member of the Genomic Sequencing Committee.

“Experts are working on ways to stop the rapid spread of the virus. After vaccination, there is not much of a problem. The BF.7 is a variant that does not cause death, but the number of infections will be high. The state government is doing a sewage survey report to identify Covid variants. The doctors are monitoring the variants and people should take precautionary measures for another two years, but there is no need to be anxious”, he added.