- GS TIMES STAFF
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has recommended a set of names to label coronavirus new variants that are deemed to be of global concern. It named various variants of the coronavirus using Greek alphabets.
- The B.1.617.1 and B.1.617.2 variants of the Covid-19, first identified in India, has been named as ‘Kappa’ and ‘Delta’ respectively, the World Health Organisation (WHO) announced.
- The so called ‘UK variant’ as has been named as ‘Alpha’.
- The existing scientific nomenclature system will continue and the new names would only be to aid public discussion using labels that were “non stigmatising” to the countries where they were first identified.
Variants of concern
- So far, four Variants of Concern (VOC) have been identified by the WHO: B.1.1.7, B.1.351, P2 and B.1.617.2.
- Their public labels will be Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta respectively, after the first four letters of the Greek alphabet.
