{"id":38633,"date":"2023-12-17T02:31:19","date_gmt":"2023-12-16T21:01:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=38633"},"modified":"2025-04-23T12:55:10","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T07:25:10","slug":"covid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/covid\/","title":{"rendered":"Kerala reports new COVID-19 variant JN.1 case"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Why in news?<\/li>\n<li>What is Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG)?<\/li>\n<li>News Summary: Kerala reports new COVID-19 variant JN.1 case\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>About JN.1<\/li>\n<li>Can this variant lead to an increase in cases?<\/li>\n<li>Are JN.1 cases on the rise?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Why in news?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>A case of JN.1, a sub-variant of COVID-19 that\u2019s currently spreading in the US and China, has been found in Kerala.<\/li>\n<li>It was found as part of the ongoing routine surveillance by INSACOG (Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG)<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>About\n<ul>\n<li>INSACOG is a national multi-agency consortium of Genome Sequencing Laboratories (RGSLs) laboratories.<\/li>\n<li>It was established by the Government of India in December 2020 for genomic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in India.<\/li>\n<li>Presently, there are 28 laboratories under this Consortium which monitor the genomic variations in SARS-CoV-2.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Jointly established by:\n<ul>\n<li>MoH&amp;FW, DBT, CSIR and ICMR<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Objective\n<ul>\n<li>To ascertain the status of Variants of Interest (VoI) and Variants of Concern (VoC) in the country<\/li>\n<li>To establish sentinel surveillance and surge surveillance mechanisms for early detection of genomic variants and assist in formulating effective public health response<\/li>\n<li>To determine the presence of genomic variants in samples collected during super-spreader events and in areas reporting increasing trend of cases\/deaths etc.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>News Summary: Kerala reports new COVID-19 variant JN.1 case<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The sub-variant is not entirely new and has been detected in small numbers in many countries for several months now.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>About JN.1<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The sub-variant JN.1 is a close relative of the 2.86 variant, commonly referred to as Pirola.\n<ul>\n<li>Pirola was on the watchlist of scientists as a variant of interest because of more than 39 mutations it carried on the spike protein as compared to its predecessor.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>It carries just one additional mutation in the spike protein as compared to its relative.\n<ul>\n<li>Mutations on the spike protein of Sars-CoV-2 are important because they are the ones that attach to receptors on human cells and allow the virus to enter it.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Can this variant lead to an increase in cases?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>There were concerns that Pirola might be able to more effectively evade immunity and spread quickly. However, that hasn\u2019t happened.<\/li>\n<li>The US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that the updated vaccines available have demonstrated the ability to effectively block Pirola infections.<\/li>\n<li>Hence, it is optimistic that the available vaccines will provide protection against JN.1 as well.<\/li>\n<li>Experts say that <u>immunity from previous infections and immunisation with vaccines containing ancestral spike protein are likely to protect against newer variants as well<\/u>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Are JN.1 cases on the rise?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The WHO said that Pirola and its descendants accounted for 17 per cent of the Sars-CoV-2 sequences uploaded to the global database<\/li>\n<li>More than half of these sequences were that of JN.1 by the beginning of December.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Q1)\u00a0What is genome sequencing?<\/h3>\n<p>Genome sequencing is a process that determines the DNA sequence of an organism&#8217;s genome. It&#8217;s also known as whole genome sequencing, full genome sequencing, or complete genome sequencing.<\/p>\n<h3>Q2)\u00a0What is Pirola?<\/h3>\n<p>An article published in the Yale Medicine Review noted the rise of Covid-19 infections in multiple countries, driven by a new Coronavirus variant called BA.2.86, which is informally being termed \u2018Pirola\u2019.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/health-wellness\/new-covid-19-variant-jn-1-spreading-in-china-us-9070801\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Kerala reports new COVID-19 variant JN.1 case that\u2019s spreading in China, US: Health Ministry keeps vigil in states<\/u><\/a><u> | <\/u><a href=\"https:\/\/dbtindia.gov.in\/insacog\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Department of Bio Technology<\/u><\/a><u> | <\/u><a href=\"https:\/\/pib.gov.in\/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1733310\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>PIB<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The sub-variant JN.1 is a close relative of the BA.2.86 variant, commonly referred to as Pirola.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":38634,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-38633","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}