No Time for Ram Bharosey

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No Time for Ram Bharosey

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• Virus inside the body: The viruses enter human bodies, and start multiplying and mutating. It starts fighting the antibodies, and tries growing in number rapidly.
• SARS-CoV-2 virus: The novel coronavirus is an RNA virus, and genetic material is not DNA but ribonucleic acid. RNA viruses cause many human diseases like common cold, polio, mumps, Ebola, dengue etc. But there's a big problem - RNA viruses mutate very fast compared to DNA ones.

1. Why so? Because the RNA polymerases (enzymes that make nucleic acid) do not proofread (like DNA polymerases do)
2. RNA replication is hence full of errors, but speed is deadly
3. Two things can happen - rapid error-prone mutations can wipe out the virus line, or make it more lethal than earlier
4. Hence, new flu-shots needed annually (with changes as per virus genetic changes that happen annually)

• Mutation in novel coronavirus: It first mutated from bats to humans, in China. Then it mutated at least five times more. First (found 2020) became the major strain. Seond (UK variant) spread fast in England. Third (South African variant, Oct 2020) had more transmission powers. Fourth was the Brazil variant. The fifth is the Indian variant, detected Oct-Nov 2020.
• Double mutant: The B.1.617 virus is a double mutant virus, causing the second wave in India. Mutatins have made it more transmissible, and more effective against human antibodies and antiviral drugs.

1. Strangely, the health ministry hasn't marked B.1.617 as a variant of concern (VOC) but a variant of interest!
2. What does B.1.617 mean for India? Two things - India must do massive level of genome sequencing, and India must vaccinate everyone fast.

• Genome sequencing: India started off well in 2020, and then went cold on gene sequencing efforts. Others didn't. Iceland sequenced blood samples of 79% who reported. Britain sequenced 3.8 lakh cases (8.7% of reported cases). US sequenced 3.3 lakh samples (1% of reported cases). India did just 10625 samples, out of 18.5 million infected. That's just 0.57%. The only reason for this was poor funding of national testing facilities.
• Make in India killed it: The labs could not do much testing because they need some special plastic containers and reagents. In May 2020, the 'Make in India' programme banned such imports (less than Rs.200 crores). Many of these have no Indian substitutes at all. So by Sept 2020, sequencing stopped. Then by Jan 2021, reagents were exempted.
• No to plastic containers: To import these, lab Directors were told to prove that there weren't any Indian alternatives. The virus kept mutating, labs kept struggling with bureaucracy, science kept losing the battle.
• INSACOG: The Indian Sars-Cov-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) just couldn't get the funding it demanded. But the FM kept promising "no dearth of funds for battling the pandemic". That was untrue.
• Rs.35000 cr in budget: Nothing materialised on the ground. Manufacturers got no money. Ramping-up never happened. And then from May 1, all adults were eligible for vaccination.
• Summary: The whole approach is only explainable by one term - Ram bharosey. There is no scientific thought at all.

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