First detected in Kerala in January, coronavirus may have entered India as early as November 2019
"There is no data for us to yet say that the new virus population (Clade A3i) among Indians is any more or less dangerous than the other virus population (Clade A2) present here," tweeted CCMB.
Representative image | Photo Credit: IANS
Hyderabad: On January 30, India had registered its first confirmed COVID-19 case in Kerala. However, scientists from top Indian research institutes believe that the ancestor of the novel coronavirus strain, which spread from China’s Wuhan, was in circulation as early as November 2019.
As per scientists, the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of Indian strains was in circulation by December 11, 2019.
The Times of India reported that scientists used a technique called ‘time to most recent common ancestor’ to estimate that the origin of the viral strain, which is being transmitted in Telangana as well as other states across India, was dated between November 26 and December 25. The median for the time period is December 11.
It is still not clear whether passengers from China had introduced the virus to India before January 30 as no large-scale coronavirus tests used to be conducted at that time.
Scientists at Hyderabad's Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) and other institutes have also found a different strain and named it as Clade I/A3i.
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As per the daily, a “clade” is “a group of organisms believed to comprise all the evolutionary descendants of a common ancestor”.
The viral strain, which was discovered in the first coronavirus case in Kerala, had its roots in Wuhan. However, the one found in Hyderabad (Clade I/A3i) is different as it originated in a Southeast Asian country, not in China. CCMB director Dr Rakesh Mishra said it is not yet clear from which country did the new clade originate from.
The MRCA of Clade I/A3i was found to be in circulation between January 17 and February 25, with the median being February 8. Another clade “A2a, which is the predominant clade in India had a tMRCA of 2nd Jan 2020 (95% HPD Interval 13 Dec 2019 - 22 Jan 2020)”.
The research team also included experts from the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (Delhi) and the Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (Ghaziabad).