Chennai: The B.1.617.1 and B.1.617.2 variants of the Covid-19, first identified in India, has been named as ‘Kappa’ and ‘Delta’ respectively, the World Health Organisation (WHO) announced it named various variants of the coronavirus using Greek alphabets.
“Labelled using Greek alphabets, WHO announces new labels for Covid variants of concern (VOC) and interest (VOI),” news agency ANI quoted the world health body as saying.
“Covid variant first found in India will be referred to as Delta, while earlier found variant in the country will be known as Kappa,” WHO further said.
According to WHO, the B.1.617.1 variant has been designated as Kappa while the B1.617.2 variant has been dubbed Delta. The earliest samples from both the variants from both the variants were documented in October 2020, it said.
The WHO’s move came nearly three weeks after India objected to the B.1.617 mutant of the novel coronavirus being termed an ‘Indian Variant’ in media reports with the Union Health Ministry pointing out that the UN’s top health organ has not used the word ‘Indian’ for this strain in its document.