The highly infectious Delta Plus variant of Coronavirus has been found for the first time in Tripura after the Delta strain was detected in three northeastern states—Assam, Manipur and Mizoram, doctors said on Saturday. Agartala Government Medical College (AGMC) Microbiology department head Tapan Majumdar said that after the samples of Tripura were tested in the National Institute of Biomedical Genomics (NIBMG) at Kalyani in West Bengal, 138 cases of Delta Plus, 10 cases of Delta (plain) and three cases of the UK variant were found in the state.

Majumdar, who was present along with Director of Health and Family Welfare Radha Debbarma and Covid-19 Surveillance Officer Deep Kumar Debbarma, said that the Delta Plus strain is more transmissible and evades the body’s immunity. “It is a cause of concern that the Delta Plus variants were found in all the eight districts of Tripura and the Delta [plain] and UK variants found in few districts,” he said.