World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended using labeled using letters of the Greek Alphabet, i.e., Alpha, Beta, Gamma, which will be easier and more practical to discussed by non-scientific audiences as these will be easy-to-pronounce. Under this, the so-called Indian variants of covid-19 has got its name changes under new guidance released by the WHO on Monday.
The Indian variant, known by scientists as B.1.617.2 and B.1.617.1, have been dubbed the 'Delta' and 'Kappa' variant.
The British variant will now be called 'Alpha' as the WHO tries to stop stigmatization of regions that were the first to sequence those new variants of coronavirus.
Notably, these new names/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.
Similarly, the so-called South African variant, known by scientists as B.1.351, is now called the Gamma variant.
| WHO label | Pango lineage | GISAID clade/lineage | Nextstrain clade | Earliest documented samples | Date of designation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alpha | B.1.1.7 | GRY (formerly GR/501Y.V1) | 20I/S:501Y.V1 | United Kingdom, Sep-2020 | 18-Dec-2020 |
| Beta | B.1.351 | GH/501Y.V2 | 20H/S:501Y.V2 | South Africa, May-2020 | 18-Dec-2020 |
| Gamma | P.1 | GR/501Y.V3 | 20J/S:501Y.V3 | Brazil, Nov-2020 | 11-Jan-2021 |
| Delta | B.1.617.2 | G/452R.V3 | 21A/S:478K | India, Oct-2020 | VOI: 4-Apr-2021 VOC: 11-May-2021 |
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