The COVID-19 variant first found in India will henceforth be referred to as the “Delta variant”, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced today. India had on May 12 objected to it, identified as B.1.617 till now, being labelled the “Indian variant”. The world health body had earlier said that viruses or variants should not be identified by the names of countries they were found in.The World Health Organisation (WHO) has used letters of the Greek alphabet to refer to the variants in order to keep the names easy to remember.
The variant “earlier found” in India will be known as “Kappa”, the WHO has said.Together, lineages of the B.1.617 variant were officially recorded in 53 territories and unofficially in another seven. It had shown to be more transmissible, while disease severity and risk of infection are still under investigation.