Amid a belligerent second wave of the Covid-19 outbreak that has swept over India, the World Health Organization has said that the variant that originated here has now officially been recorded in 53 territories.
As per a report released by the WHO on Wednesday, unofficial sources have confirmed that the ‘B.1.617 variant’ – a mutated strain of the coronavirus – has been traced to seven new territories, taking the total number to 60, figures in the global health watchdog’s weekly epidemiological update showed.
The WHO split up the figures for the B.1.617 variant into three lineages – B.1.617.1, B.1.617.2 and B.1.617.3. The first was reported in 41 territories, the second in 54 and the third in six – India, Britain, the United States, Canada, Russia and Germany.
Together, the traces of the B.1.617 variant were officially recorded in 53 territories, while unofficially in another seven, the AFP reported.
The UN health agency had on May 12 claimed that the highly-transmittable double mutant variant from India was found in 44 countries across the world.
The central government had later that day dismissed the claims as “unfounded and without any basis”, and clarified that the WHO has not linked the term ‘Indian variant’ with the ‘B.1.617 strain’.
“Several media reports have covered the news of WHO classifying B.1.617 as 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. This is to clarify that the 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,” the Centre had said.
Furthermore, the Indian government had asked social media platform to immediately taken down any content that mentioned ‘Indian variant’ of Covid-19 in order to check the spread of misinformation around the outbreak.
The IT ministry had on May 21 written to all social media platforms emphasising that the WHO has not associated the term ‘Indian Variant’ with the B.1.617 strain of the Covid-19 virus in any of its reports.
Of the 23.1 million cases reported in the South-East Asia Region till date, over 86% are attributed to India, the WHO said in a report.
