THE Public Health Ministry said today (Aug. 24) that the emergence of four new sub-variants of the Covid Delta strain in Thailand do not mean that they are mutating into a new Thai strain, TV Channel 7 said.
Dr Wasan Chantrathit, head of Ramathibodi Hospital’s Centre for Medical Genomics, said earlier today that the Delta variant has mutated at 60 locations worldwide with 27 sub-variants having emerged and four doing so in Thailand as follows:
-AY.4 found in four person in Rangsit area, Pathum Thani province;
-AY.6 found in one person but the province not specified;
-AY.12 found in one patient at a hospital in Phayathai area of Bangkok;
-AY.10 found in one person in Bangkok.
Dr Wasan added that these four sub-variants were found in Thailand and not at quarantine facilities for overseas arrivals.
Moreover there is not enough clinical data to ascertain whether or not these sub-variants are more resistant to vaccines or able to compromise immunity.
Meanwhile Dr. Supakit Sirilak, the head of the Public Health Ministry’s Department of Medical Sciences, said the randomly detected sub-strains of Delta are not a mutation into a Thai variant with such sub-variants also found in other countries.
The variant AY.1, or Delta Plus, found in India has not appeared in Thailand, he said, while warning that there is a strong likelihood that areas where the outbreak is widespread, such as Bangkok and neighbouring provinces, could see new sub-variants or even a new strain.
The overall picture shows that 92.9% of the cases nationwide were of the Delta variant with this strain spreading in all 77 provinces. In Bangkok 97% of the cases are of this variant.
The Beta variant has now been controlled in Bangkok and Bueng Kan province with there being no new cases emerging but it is still spreading in the southern provinces with 29 new patients found through random testing
Earlier the Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) stated there were 17,491 new coronavirus cases and 242 deaths in the past 24 hours, Amarin TV said.
Of the new batch of cases 15,014 appeared in surveillance and service systems, 2,072 through proactive testing, 398 fell sick in prisons and detention centres while seven overseas arrivals were placed in state quarantine.
The cumulative confirmed total since the start of the pandemic has risen to 1,066,786 and in the current wave that began in April 1,037,923.
Another 22,134 patients have been cured taking total recoveries since the start of the to 861,770 and in the ongoing wave 834,344. Another 195,454 patients are still undergoing treatment.
Today’s 242 fatalities raised the death toll since the start of the pandemic to 9,562 and in the current wave 9,468.
Altogether 27,038,999 doses of vaccines have been administered so far.
On Sunday Aug. 22 another 157,857 people got their first jab raising to total to 20,430,028;
On the same day 47,183 people got their second jab with 6,065,003 having done so;
At the sametime another 1,780 got their third jab with the total now being 543,968.
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