States repeatedly advised to send adequate number of samples for sequencing: Centre

New Delhi, Sep 06: There have been some media reports alleging that genome sequencing and analysis of the COVID19 declined sharply in India even as cases of the disease continued to rise. The report further claims that the country sequenced very low number of samples till date, the Ministry of Health said in a release.

It is clarified that the number of sequences, as quoted in the report, seems to be taken from Indian COVID19 Genome Surveillance portal (http://clingen.igib.res.in/covid19genomes/ ). The sequences analysed in the IGIB SFTP are as per the collection date of samples and does not depict the number of samples sequenced in a particular month. The samples sequenced by labs of INSACOG consortium also depends on the samples sent by the respective States.

There have been some media reports alleging that genome sequencing and analysis of the COVID19 declined sharply in India even as cases of the disease continued to rise. The report further claims that the country sequenced very low number of samples till date.

It is clarified that the number of sequences, as quoted in the report, seems to be taken from Indian COVID19 Genome Surveillance portal (http://clingen.igib.res.in/covid19genomes/ ). The sequences analysed in the IGIB SFTP are as per the collection date of samples and does not depict the number of samples sequenced in a particular month. The samples sequenced by labs of INSACOG consortium also depends on the samples sent by the respective States, the Ministry further added.