BA.4 Variant Patient In Tamil Nadu Fully Recovered And No More Spread Detected

According to state Health and Family Welfare Principal Secretary Dr J Radhakrishnan, a 19-year-old college student from Chengalpattu district who came in contact of the Omicron BA. 4 sub lineage variant has fully recovered and cured. The strain has not spread to other parts of Tamil Nadu till now which is a piece of relief.

The teen who was part of a family of four affected with the virus, had no prior travel experience. He stated that epidemiologically, it is unknown how this particular strain infected her. It's possible that the strain had been circulating. Her case is unique in the state. She is now completely recovered.

Her mother who is 45 years old along with her daughter, got a mild flu-like sickness on May 4, willingly conducted an RT-PCR test at a private lab and discovered that she had BA.2 sub-lineage, while her daughter had BA.4 variation. The Omicron variation of RS CoV-2 was responsible for both.

BA.2 is the most common variant found in 73 percent of covid-19 samples sequenced by Whole Genomic Sequencing (WGS) in Tamil Nadu. The BA.2 form of Omicron was responsible for recent clusters at IIT Madras and Sri Sathya Sai Medical College.

The girl's father and grandmother were unaffected. Three members of this family, who live in a gated community in Navalur, OMR, Chengalpattu district, had received two doses of the vaccination, while the grandmother had only received one.