The World Health Organization (WHO) has announced a new naming system for variants of COVID-19. The UK variant for instance is labelled as Alpha, the South African Beta, and the Indian as Delta. Earlier this month the Indian government criticised the naming of variant B.1.617.2 - first detected in the country last October - as the “Indian variant”, though the WHO had never officially labelled it as such. “No country should be stigmatised for detecting and reporting variants,” the WHO’s COVID-19 technical lead, Maria Van Kerkhove, tweeted. — Maria Van Kerkhove (@mvankerkhove) May 31, 2021Letters will refer to both variants of concern, and variants of interest.

Source: The Nation June 01, 2021 02:03 UTC