Shocking Discovery: Coronavirus Entered India in November 2019

Scientists from Hyderabad have made a shocking discovery. The virus, which had set a nationwide lockdown from March, after its mass spreading, has been spreading in the country since November. According to a Times of India report, scientists have estimated that the ancestor of the novel coronavirus strain, discovered in Wuhan, China, was in circulation since December 11, 2019. Scientists associated with top Indian research Institutions used a technique to find out the Most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of Indian Strains and discovered that the virus that is circulating in India originated somewhere in between November 26 to December 25. The median date of which is said to be 11 December 2019.

India reported its first positive case on January 30, 2020, in Kerala. There is no concrete proof regarding the transmission of the virus prior to that date, as no mass testing was conducted at the airports through which patients carried the virus into the country.

Researches and CCMB (center for cellular and molecular biology) have also discovered a new strain of the novel coronavirus. They have named this new strain as Clade l/A3i.

However, the first case that was reported in Kerala belonged to the Wuhan ancestor. But in a recent study, it has been found out that the strain in Hyderabad is Clade l/A3i, which did not originate in China, but in Southeast Asia. The exact location of the origin is yet to be found out.

This new clade is believed to start circulation around February 8. Another clade called A2a had the Most recent common ancestor of January 2.

These clades are only found in India and are different from the ten other clades previously discovered, as per the CSIR-IGIB Delhi, Academy of scientific and Innovative research Ghaziabad.

Since January when the first case of COVID19 was found in India, more than 2 lakhs Coronavirus cases have been detected with over 6000 succumbing to the virus. The lockdown which started in last week of March is gradually being lifted, however, the number of cases reported per day has been rising exponentially. A vaccine to control the spread of virus is yet to be discovered, thus people around the world have started to learn to live with virus.