A study has shown that the Delta variant of Covid-19 has a high immune escape potential. The researchers including scientists from Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB) in collaboration with Cambridge University’s Gupta Lab have reported that the variant has caused most of the breakthrough infections (infection after complete vaccination) in healthcare workers.

Quoting to the researchers involved in the study, it is reported that the Delta variant has the maximum transmissibility seen to date and it reduces neutralisation protection from previous infections and vaccines.

The collaborating Gupta Lab from Cambridge University tweets, 'We find that Delta is both more transmissible and better able to evade prior immunity elicited by previous infection compared to previously circulating lineages. While there is substantial uncertainty in our estimates, we find that in Mumbai, the Delta variant was 10% to 40% more transmissible than previously circulating lineages, and able to evade 20 to 55% of the immune protection provided by prior infection with non-Delta virus'.

As mentioned in the report, Delta variant had a replication advantage over Alpha variant in the lab. When samples of over 100 healthcare workers from three Delhi hospitals who got breakthrough infections were sequenced, most of them were caused by the Delta variant.

The researchers, report says, looked at sensitivity of the variants of concern to neutralising antibodies from a previous infection by the virus originated in Wuhan. They found that Alpha variant, firstly seen in the UK, was 2.3 fold less sensitive and, Beta -- seen first in South Africa -- was 8.2 fold less sensitive when compared to 5.7 fold for Delta variant.

The study, which was done in three Indian cities, was intended to find how the variant reacted to antibodies as well as the way in which the virus infected human cells, particularly in the lungs.