delta Covid-19 variant has now spread to 80 countries, WHO says

Shafaq News/ World Health Organization officials confirmed that the delta variant, first detected in India, has now spread to more than 80 countries and it continues to mutate as it spreads across the globe.

“What I think this means is that there is an additional mutation that has been identified,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s Covid-19 technical lead. “In some of the delta variants we’ve seen one less mutation or one deletion instead of an additional, so we’re looking at all of it.”

Earlier, the WHO also added another Covid-19 mutation, the lambda variant, to its list of variants of interest. The agency is monitoring more than 50 different Covid-19 variants, but not all become enough of a public health threat to make the WHO’s formal watchlist. The lambda variant has multiple mutations in the spike protein that could have an impact on its transmissibility, but more studies are needed to fully understand the mutations, Van Kerkhove said.

The lambda variant has been detected by scientists in South America, including in Chile, Peru, Ecuador and Argentina, thanks to increased genomic surveillance.