Indian Institute Succeeds in Isolating and Culturing Omicron Strain in Lab

In a significant development, India has been able to isolate and grow highly transmissible Omicron variant of the Covid-19 virus in a laboratory setting.

Experts at the Translational Health Science and Technology Institute (THSTI), an autonomous institute under the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) has isolated and cultured the strain of Covid-19 in its laboratory, people in the know told ET.

Balram Bhargava, director-general of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said that both ICMR and DBT had some success in culturing the virus.

“Both ICMR and DBT have been working continuously to culture the virus. Initially, we had some difficulty in culturing and growing the virus now we had some success in culturing the virus both at ICMR and DBT,” he said.

The lab-cultured grown Omicron will help know the behaviour of the strain in the Indian population, ascertain its infectiousness and assess the efficacy of existing vaccines.

“We have the sera of Omicron infected individuals, those infected with Delta and the original strain and we are testing the efficacy of the vaccines on these variants,” Bhargava added.

Experts said it will take some time to find if the new variant is immune to vaccines and how severely it affects an infected individual.

The National Institute of Virology in Pune is also trying to grow the new strain.

Once it’s done, the experts would know whether the variant can escape from the immune response and how infectious it is. The findings will also shape up the policy regarding the need for booster doses.

The National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI) will meet in January to review the need for a booster dose, additional dose for immunocompromised people and vaccination of children.

“By then the variant would have been grown in the lab and we would get some answers regarding the effectiveness of vaccines against Omicron,” said a senior government official.