new delhi many variants of the covid19 virus are in circulation in india and other parts of the world viruses mutate all the time as part of the evolutionary biology since its outbreak last year covid19 virus too has undergone several changes in its genetic code while some mutations have weakened it others have made it stronger ie more infectiousexperts have said that the massive surge in cases during indias second wave was triggered predominantly by the doublemutant variant found in the country this variant has now surfaced in other parts of the world as welland the problem is it appears to be more infectious and seems tougher to stopthe world health organization on monday declared the variant that emerged in india known as b1617 as a variant of concern there is some available information to suggest increased transmissibility of b1617 the whos marie van kerkhove said from geneva the strains emerging from the uk and south africa have also been classified as variants of concern by the global health body what is double mutation like other variants of concern b1617 has more than a dozen mutations according to a report by usbased npr two mutations of the virus are particularly concerning ravindra gupta a microbiologist at the university of cambridge told npr that these mutations are found on an important part of the virus where the immune system attacksthis is why the variant is labeled as a double mutant it had these two big mutations in two big places and that is what has caused all the worries gupta explained the report said that each of these mutations or similar versions of them have been found in other parts of the world such as california and brazil previous studies have shown that these mutations individually give the virus an advantage against the immune system it reduces the ability of antibodies to fight off the virus the report saidis it the most contagious covid mutant in the worldlast week tom wenseleers an evolutionary biologist at the university of leuven in belgium was quoted as npr by saying that cases of the indian variant were rising at a faster rate than cases of uk variant b117 in three states in india as well as in the united kingdomif you take all these pieces of evidence together im fairly confident that the variant from india has a growth advantage and that is a reason for the current epidemic in india he saidhowever other researchers are dubious of wenseleers findings since the data is preliminary and has not been publishedkarthik gangavarapu a computational biologist at scripps research institute told npr i dont think the story is clear yet im not saying b1617 isnt more transmissible than b117 im just saying theres a burden of proof you need to establish before you can say thathowever gangavarapu says theres no question that the variant in india is worrisome and something the whole world needs to try and stop togetherbut does the