The World Helath Organisation (WHO) has assigned simple, easy to say and remember labels for key variants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, using letters of the Greek alphabet.

 

These labels were chosen after wide consultation and a review of many potential naming systems, it said. 

 

WHO convened an expert group of partners from around the world to do so, including experts who are part of existing naming systems, nomenclature and virus taxonomic experts, researchers and national authorities.

 

WHO will assign labels for those variants that are designated as Variants of Interest or Variants of Concern by WHO. These will be posted on the WHO website.

 

Under the new system, the variants of concern take on the following names: the hitherto so-called British variant B117 becomes Alpha; the B1351 first detected in South Africa becomes Beta, while the Brazilian P.1 becomes Gamma. The one found in India (B1617) is split into sub-lineages, of which the B16172 variant of concern becomes Delta and the B16171 variant of interest is called Kappa.

 

These labels do not replace existing scientific names (e.g. those assigned by GISAID, Nextstrain and Pango), which convey important scientific information and will continue to be used in research.

 

"While they have their advantages, these scientific names can be difficult to say and recall, and are prone to misreporting. As a result, people often resort to calling variants by the places where they are detected, which is stigmatizing and discriminatory. To avoid this and to simplify public communications, WHO encourages national authorities, media outlets and others to adopt these new labels," WHO said. - TradeArabia News Service