Genomic surveillance is crucial for tracking the next ‘variant of concern’, but many countries are winding back their monitoring.
Most nations also sequenced a representative sample of viruses from across the community, says Vitali Sintchenko, a microbiologist at the University of Sydney in Australia. In a study he co-authored, the researchers concluded that countries should aim to sequence 0.5% of COVID-19 cases and share that data within 21 days of collecting the samples.
The World Health Organization only designates a new ‘variant of concern’ if a variant is better at evading existing immune system protections, causes more severe disease or is much more transmissible than currently circulating variants. The Delta variant was designated a variant of concern in May 2021, seven months after the first known sample was collected in India. The first sign that there could be a concerning new variant around was a rapid rise in case numbers, hospitalizations and deaths in India at the start of 2021. “It's connecting case counts and genetics as much as you can,” says Hill.
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