The Union Health Ministry on Wednesday expressed its displeasure against terming the B.1.617 mutant of the novel coronavirus as an “Indian variant”, saying that the WHO had not used the word “Indian” for this strain in its document.
On Tuesday, a WHO report said the variant had “increased transmissibility” and had been found in 44 countries, and therefore described it as a “variant of global concern”. “Several media reports have covered the news of the World Health Organisation (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’,” the ministry said in a statement.
“These media reports are without any basis, and unfounded,” it said, adding that the WHO had not associated the term “Indian Variant” with the B.1.617 strain of the coronavirus in its 32-page document. “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,” the tweet from the global health organisation said.
In a report published on Tuesday, the WHO said that the B.1.617 variant of SARS-CoV-2 – the virus that causes the Covid-19 disease – was first found in India in October 2020. The variant, it added, had “increased transmissibility” and has been found in 44 countries.