Abhijit Nath, NET Correspondent, Tripura

Two days after Tripura Health officials claimed that 138 cases of Delta Plus variant of COVID-19 were found in the state, the central government on Sunday informed that no case of Delta Plus was reported from sample sequencing in Tripura.

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in press communiqué on Sunday said that the media reports saying that multiple cases of the Delta Plus variant of COVID-19 were found in Tripura are false.

The central government said that not a single case of Delta Plus variant has been found in the state so far, adding, the results of genome sequencing reveal cases of Delta variant of the virus.

“152 samples were sent from Tripura to NIBMG Kalyani for Whole Genome Sequence (WGS). The random samples were of people tested RT-PCR positive between April and May,” the ministry said in a statement.

The Centre said that the results showed that “3 samples had tested positive for B.1.1.7, 11 samples had tested positive for B.1617.1 (Kappa variant) and 138 samples had tested positive for B 1.617.2 (Delta variant)”.

“There was no case of Delta Plus reported among the lot of sequenced samples,” communiqué said.

Dr. Deep Debbarma, the COVID-19 nodal officer of Tripura said that the matter will be taken up with higher authorities and it would not be possible to comment right now.

Earlier this week, Dr Debbarma, informed that the northeastern state ‘Tripura’ had sent 151 RT-PCR samples for genome sequencing in West Bengal.