{"id":113860,"date":"2021-04-28T15:13:05","date_gmt":"2021-04-28T22:13:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=113860"},"modified":"2021-04-28T15:13:05","modified_gmt":"2021-04-28T22:13:05","slug":"indian-covid-19-variant-found-in-at-least-17-countries-who","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/04\/28\/indian-covid-19-variant-found-in-at-least-17-countries-who\/","title":{"rendered":"Indian COVID-19 variant found in at least 17 countries \u2013 WHO"},"content":{"rendered":"

Courtesy Adaderana<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

The World Health Organization said Tuesday that a variant of COVID-19 feared to be contributing to a surge in coronavirus cases in India has been found in over a dozen countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The UN health agency said the B.1.617 variant of COVID-19 first found in India had as of Tuesday been detected in over 1,200 sequences uploaded to the GISAID open-access database from at least 17 countries\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most sequences were uploaded from India, the United Kingdom, USA and Singapore,\u201d the WHO said in its weekly epidemiological update on the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The WHO recently listed B.1.617 — which counts several sub-lineages with slightly different mutations and characteristics — as a variant of interest\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But so far it has stopped short of declaring it a variant of concern\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That label would indicate that it is more dangerous that the original version of the virus by for instance being more transmissible, deadly or able to dodge vaccine protections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

India is facing surging new cases and deaths in the pandemic, and fears are rising that the variant could be contributing to the unfolding catastrophe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The explosion in infections in India — 350,000 new cases were recorded there on Tuesday alone — has driven a surge in global cases to 147.7 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The virus has now killed more than 3.1 million people worldwide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The WHO acknowledged that its preliminary modelling based on sequences submitted to GISAID indicates that B.1.617 has a higher growth rate than other circulating variants in India, suggesting potential increased transmissibility\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It stressed that other variants circulating at the same time were also showing increased transmissibility, and that the combination may be playing a role in the current resurgence in this country.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, studies have highlighted that the spread of the second wave has been much faster than the first,\u201d the WHO said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It highlighted though that other drivers\u201d could be contributing to the surge, including lax adherence to public health measures as well as mass gatherings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further investigation is needed to understand the relative contribution of these factors,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The UN agency also stressed that further robust studies\u201d into the characteristics of B.1.617 and other variants, including impacts on transmissibility, severity and the risk of reinfection, were urgently needed\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Source: AFP
-Agencies<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Courtesy Adaderana The World Health Organization said Tuesday that a variant of COVID-19 feared to be contributing to a surge in coronavirus cases in India has been found in over a dozen countries. The UN health agency said the B.1.617 variant of COVID-19 first found in India had as of Tuesday been detected in over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category--19-"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113860\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}