‘State affected by new strain of COVID-19’

SHILLONG, April 20: Principal Secretary, Health, Sampath Kumar has said that the COVID-19 cases detected in the state may be of the new strain as the infection rate is very high.
“There are all the symptoms of the new strain and it is highly infectious. It took almost two months for the number of cases to reach 500 last year, but we are getting about 100 cases every day now,” he told The Shillong Times.
“It can be the new strain as it is infectious and acting the way it is acting in other states,” Kumar said, adding that the samples have been sent for testing outside Meghalaya for confirmation.
Although the state government has submitted the whole genome sequencing of COVID-19 to the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) for detecting the new variant of COVID-19 in the state, the report is still awaited.
“Not only Meghalaya, all the states have submitted the whole genome sequencing to the NCDC. We had sent the samples to the NCDC in February last,” Joint DHS (MCH&FW) in-charge IDSP, Dr R. Lyngdoh informed while addressing a press conference here on Tuesday.