USING TERM ‘INDIAN VARIANT’ FOR B.1.617 STRAIN HAS NO BASIS, WHO HAS NOT DONE SO: GOVT

The Government of India on Wednesday clarified that the World Health Organization (WHO) has not associated the term “Indian variant” with the B.1.617 variant of the coronavirus in its weekly epidemiological update on the pandemic.

“This is to clarify that WHO has not associated the term ‘Indian Variant’ with the B.1.617 variant of the coronavirus in its 32-page document. In fact, the word ‘Indian’ has not been used in its report on the matter,” said an official statement.

The clarification came after several media reports covered the news of the WHO classifying B.1.617 as a variant of global concern. “Some of these reports have termed the B.1.617 variant of the coronavirus as an ‘Indian Variant’. These media reports are without any basis, and unfounded,” the statement added.

The Twitter handle for WHO South-East Asia also said in a tweet, “WHO does not identify viruses or variants with names of countries they are first reported from. We refer to them by their scientific names and request all to do the same for consistency,” tagging the accounts of certain media outlets in India.

Many Twitter users also responded by saying that the media houses reporting the Covid strain as the “Indian variant” were bringing disrepute to the country.

Earlier on Wednesday, a WHO report had said that the B.1.617 variant of Covid-19, first found in India last October, had been detected in sequences uploaded “from 44 countries in all six WHO regions”.

“As of 11 May, over 4,500 sequences have been uploaded to GISAID (platform of data sharing mechanism for influenza) and assigned to B.1.617 from 44 countries in all six WHO regions, and WHO has received reports of detections from five additional countries,” WHO said in its weekly epidemiological update on the pandemic.

Earlier this week, the WHO declared B.1.617 as a “variant of concern”. Three other variants of Covid-19—first detected in Britain, Brazil and South Africa—were already classified as being “of concern”.

WITH AGENCY INPUTS