As the COVID-19 situation continued to turn grimmer in India, experts in Bangladesh have suggested closing the borders with the neighbouring country to contain the spread of a new and potentially more transmissible variant of the virus, The Daily Star reported.

.In a meeting, the National Technical Advisory Committee (NTAC) on COVID-19 also recommended that the borders should not reopen until the situation in India improved.

"We have suggested that the government seal off the borders with India right away as the situation there is grim," NTAC member Nazrul Islam told The Daily Star.

"If the government does not close the border completely, it must ensure institutional quarantine for all returnees from India," he said.

The new variant, which has a so-called double mutation, is reported to be fuelling India's second wave of coronavirus cases that has made it the world's second worst Covid-hit country, surpassing Brazil, after the US.

The infection has claimed 187,000 lives and affected 16.3 million people in the country of over 1.3 billion people since the outbreak started last year. With the situation turning grim, 2,263 people perished and nearly 333 thousand fresh cases were recorded only on Thursday, with complaints of oxygen, medicine and hospital bed shortage reported from a number of states.

The new variant, called B.1.617, was initially detected in India with two mutations -- the E484Q and L452R. It was first reported late last year by a scientist in India and more details were presented before the WHO recently.

Viruses mutate all the time, as part of evolutionary biology. Some mutations weaken the virus while others may make it stronger, enabling it to proliferate faster or cause more infections.

The double mutation has been found in several countries like Australia, Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Namibia, New Zealand, Singapore, the UK and the US, according to an April 16 statement from the Indian government. "Higher transmissibility of this variant has not been established yet," it said.

When asked whether such a double mutant was found in the country, Mushtaq Hossain, an adviser to the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR), said, "It is not unlikely as people cross the border frequently. But we have to stress on genome sequencing."