China isolated the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) from a patient and shared the first whole genome sequence data of the virus with the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID) on January 11. This allowed scientists from across the world to study the genome data to know more about the virus origin and develop diagnostics.
As on March 4, 23 countries, including Nepal, Vietnam and Cambodia, have shared 159 genome sequence data. At 65, China has deposited the most number of genome sequences followed by the U.S. (16), Australia (10), Japan (9) and Singapore and South Korea (eight sequences each).
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However, till date, India has not shared even one genome sequence data. The first COVID-19 patient in India, a medical student who had returned from Wuhan, was confirmed on January 30 by the Pune-based national Institute of Virology (NIV). Two more adults from Kerala too had tested positive students and were laboratory confirmed by NIV about a month back.
Even in 2015 H1N1 outbreak when 42,592 cases and 2,990 deaths were reported from India, the full genome sequence data was not shared with the WHO reference laboratories or deposited in public databases.
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