Indian Variant of COVID-19 Found in 17 Other Countries: WHO

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The World Health Organization on Tuesday, 27 April, said that the variant of COVID-19 that has been suspected to be behind the second wave in India has been found in several other countries.

According to a report on NDTV, the UN health agency said the B.1.617 variant of COVID-19 first found in India had been detected in over 1,200 sequences uploaded to the GISAID open-access database "from at least 17 countries".

"Most sequences were uploaded from India, the United Kingdom, USA and Singapore," the agency said.

The B.1.617 variant was first reported in Maharashtra. This variant carries two mutations – E484Q and L452R, which are otherwise separately found in many other coronavirus variants as well. But for the first time it was reported together from India.

While the WHO acknowledged initial research indicates "that B.1.617 has a higher growth rate than other circulating variants in India, suggesting potential increased transmissibility", it hasn’t declared it as a “variant of concern” yet.

They said that although this new variant could be contributing to the surge in India, there could some other reasons for it as well, such as inadequate health measures and mass gatherings, the report said.

Preliminary studies show that Covaxin, India's home-grown COVID vaccine produced by Bharat Biotech may be able to neutralise this variant.

A report from 28 April, quoted White House Chief Medical Adviser Anthony Fauci as saying, "Now, this is something where we're still gaining data on a daily basis. But the most recent data was looking at convalescent sera of COVID-19 cases in people who received the vaccine used in India, the Covaxin. And it was found to neutralise the 617 variant.”