Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove a technical lead for COVID with the World Health Organization has announced that a triple-mutant COVID variant that emerged in India will be of pathogenic concern. The variant designated B.1.617 shows high infectivity and may be partly refractory to some vaccines.
The World Health Organization is evaluating ten coronavirus variants including B.1.617 to determine their epidemiologic significance. Variants are labeled “of concern” if they demonstrate higher levels of transmissibility or pathogenicity. The B.1.617 variant is believed to be responsible for the current surge in incident cases in India with as many as 400,000 new cases diagnosed daily during second week of May. The WHO is concerned over the B.1.1.7 variant first detected in the U.K. that is now prevalent in the U.S. Other variants of concern are the B.1.351 that originated in South Africa and the P.1 variant in Brazil.