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New Covid variant with more severity detected by NIV Pune scientists
NEW DELHI : Scientists at Pune’s National Institute of Virology have isolated and characterised a coronavirus variant from two travellers -- one who returned from the UK and the other from Brazil -- that exhibits increased disease severity in hamsters but doesn’t pose a public health problem at the moment.The two samples of the B.1.1.28.2 variant are the only ones of its kind isolated by Indian labs so far.The variant was isolated from nasal/throat swabs from a traveller who returned to India from the UK in December 2020, and another who came back from Brazil in January 2021.The samples of the variant, first identified in Brazil last year, were collected as part of the ongoing SARS-CoV-2 genomic surveillance.“The finding is significant