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Coronavirus India
AsiaSouth Asia

Coronavirus: variant from India found in at least 44 countries, World Health Organization says

  • The B.1.617 variant appears to be transmitting more easily than the original virus and may be more resistant to treatment, the UN health body said
  • It said the spread of more transmittable variants appeared to be one of several factors fuelling India’s dramatic surge in new cases and deaths

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Relatives wearing protective gear perform rituals at a crematorium in New Delhi on Tuesday as they prepare to cremate a loved one who died of Covid-19. Photo: AFP
Agence France-Pressein Geneva
The World Health Organization said on Wednesday that a variant of Covid-19 behind the acceleration of India’s explosive outbreak has been found in dozens of countries all over the world.

The UN health agency said the B. 1.617 variant of Covid-19, first found in India in October, had been detected in more than 4,500 samples uploaded to an open-access database “from 44 countries in all six WHO regions”.

“And WHO has received reports of detections from five additional countries,” it said in its weekly epidemiological update on the pandemic.

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Outside India, it said that Britain had reported the largest number of Covid-19 cases caused by the variant.
Earlier this week, the WHO declared B.1.617 – which counts three so-called sub-lineages with slightly different mutations and characteristics – as a “variant of concern”. It was therefore added to the list containing three other variants of Covid-19 – those first detected in Britain, Brazil and South Africa.

The variants are seen as more dangerous than the original version of the virus because they are either being more transmissible, deadly or able to get past some vaccine protections.

The WHO explained on Wednesday that B.1.617 was added to the list because it appears to be transmitting more easily than the original virus, pointing to the “rapid increases in prevalence in multiple countries”.

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