No ‘Dalmicron’ virus yet, time to fight Omicron: Health experts
As a new coronavirus strain is being dubbed ‘Dalmicron’ in India, leading health experts on Saturday urged people to ignore rumors and wait for global health agencies such as the World Health Organization (WHO) or the US Center for Disease gave advice. Control and Prevention (CDC) to confirm or deny the presence of such a COVID variant.
Several reports surfaced this week talking about ‘Delmicron’ in India, quoting Dr Shashank Joshi, a member of Maharashtra’s C-19 Task Force, who said: “Delmicron, the twin spikes of Delta and Omicron in Europe and the US. has led. to a mini-tsunami of cases.”
There is no such covid variant yet, and there is no information about another mutation of the SARS-CoV-2 virus after Omicron, which is spreading wildly around the world.
Neither the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) nor the Indian National COVID-19 Task Force have spoken about the presence of the so-called ‘Delmicron’.
Harshal R Salve, Associate Professor, Center for Community Medicine, AIIMS, New Delhi, told IANS that no such version exists.
“There is no new COVID virus variant called ‘Delmicron’ yet,” Salve said.
He said, “Omicron is also not a new virus as it is a mutated coronavirus. According to the evidence available so far, its infectivity is high, but the symptoms are mild in nature. So there is no need to panic about it.”
The Health Ministry said on Saturday that a total of 415 omicron cases have been reported in India. At least 115 have been recovered. Maharashtra has the highest number of 108 micron infections, followed by Delhi with 79 cases. Gujarat has 43 cases and Telangana 38 cases.
According to Dr Neha Gupta, Infectious Disease Specialist at Medanta-The Medicity in Gurgaon, Delta is still the dominant COVID strain in India, while Omicron is now spreading.
“So far, studies have shown that the Omicron version has a shorter incubation period of only 3 days compared to the delta version where it can be 2-28 days. This implies that the third wave will be of shorter duration and probably , reach a high peak if COVID-appropriate measures are not followed,” she told IANS.
For the so-called Delmicron version, “there is no need for unnecessary fear”, she said.
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