Genome Sequencing

Covid-19 is threatening to rear its ugly head again. In such a scenario picking up the variant early is key to formulate appropriate and effective health policy that would help prevent and control its spread in the community.
It is trite that an effective Covid-19 pandemic response requires, among others, keeping track of emerging variants and then conducting further studies about their transmissibility, immune escape and potential to cause severe disease. In such a case scenario, the genomic sequencing, a laboratory method that is used to identify changes (mutations) in the genetic structure of the virus, becomes simply imperative.
According to the World Health Organization, Sequencing enabled the world to rapidly identify SARS-CoV-2 and develop diagnostic tests and other tools for outbreak management. Continued genome sequencing supports the monitoring of the disease’s spread and evolution of the virus. Accelerated integration of genome sequencing into the practices of the global health community is required if “we want to be better prepared for the future threats.”
A meeting chaired by the Chief Secretary of J&K on Friday was informed that genome sequencing labs at both the cities of Jammu and Srinagar are being “established shortly” for better monitoring and evaluation. The decision is important and these labs must be established sans any further delay.
The announcement comes a couple of days after the central government, amid a sudden spurt in Covid-19 cases in Japan, South Korea, Brazil, China and the US, urged all states and Union territories to gear up the whole genome sequencing of positive samples to keep track of emerging variants.
In a letter to states and UTs, Union Health Secretary said such an exercise “will enable timely detection of newer variants, if any, circulating in the country and will facilitate undertaking of requisite public health measures.” The message from the Centre underscores key aspect of the fight against the covid-19 pandemic. The scientific knowledge and understanding about emerging strains is going to be the key to deploy public health interventions to fight the pandemic which is all but over by any stretch of imagination. The emerging variants, with early evidence of higher transmissibility, immune escape and breakthrough infections, demand continuous rethinking and re-strategising of the response. Scientific research makes a difference and leads to informed policy decisions. As has been rightly put by the WHO, each phase in the COVID-19 pandemic will raise different questions that are central to public health and some of which require definitely distinct genome sampling strategies.

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