GENEVA – The World Health Organisation (WHO) today said a variant of Covid-19 behind the acceleration of India’s explosive outbreak has been found in dozens of countries all over the world.
The United Nations health agency said the B.1.617 variant, first found in India last October, has been detected in more than 4,500 samples uploaded to an open-access database “from 44 countries in all six WHO regions”.
“And, WHO has received reports of detections from five additional countries,” it said in its weekly epidemiological update on the coronavirus pandemic.
Outside India, it said Britain has reported the largest number of Covid-19 cases caused by the variant.
Earlier this week, WHO declared B.1.617 – which counts three so-called sub-lineages with slightly different mutations and characteristics – as a “variant of concern”.
It was then added to a list containing three other variants – those first detected in Britain, Brazil and South Africa.
The variants are seen as more dangerous than the original version of the virus because they are either more transmissible, deadly, or able to get past some vaccine protections.
‘Rapid increase’
WHO said B.1.617 was added to the list because it appears to be transmitting more easily than the original virus, pointing to the “rapid increases in prevalence in multiple countries”.
It also pointed to “preliminary evidence” that the variant is more resistant to treatment with the monoclonal antibody Bamlanivimab, and also highlighted early lab studies indicating “limited reduction in neutralisation by antibodies”.
The agency stressed, though, that “real-world impacts” on the effectiveness of vaccines against the variant “may be limited”.
WHO said the spread of B.1.617, alongside other more transmittable variants, appears to be one of several factors fuelling India’s dramatic surge in new cases and deaths.
India, a country of 1.3 billion people, is the world’s second-most-infected after the United States with nearly 23 million Covid-19 cases, and is currently recording more than 300,000 fresh cases and close to 4,000 deaths each day.
The new surge has ravaged major cities, including the capital New Delhi and financial hub Mumbai, pushing hospitals to breaking point and leading to severe shortages in oxygen and beds.
“WHO found that the resurgence and acceleration of Covid-19 transmission in India had several potential contributing factors, including an increase in the proportion of cases of SARS-CoV-2 variants with potentially increased transmissibility.”
It also pointed to “several religious and political mass gathering events that increased social mixing, and the under-use of and reduced adherence to public health and social measures”.
“The exact contributions of each of these factors on increased transmission in India are not well understood.”
WHO stressed that so far, only 0.1% of positive Covid-19 tests in India have been genetically sequenced and uploaded to the GISAID database to identify the variant in question.
By end-April, B.1.617.1 and B.1.617.2 accounted for 21% and 7%, respectively, of all sequenced samples from India, it said.
In addition, there are other more contagious variants spreading in the country, including B.1.1.7, which was first detected in Britain. – AFP, May 12, 2021
