The World Health Organization on Monday classified a coronavirus variant first spotted in India as a global “variant of concern,” saying preliminary studies showed it may be more transmissible than some other variants.
The WHO didn’t report any evidence suggesting that currently authorized vaccines would be less effective against the variant.
The variant, known as B.1.617, is being studied by scientists around the world as they try to figure out its role in the fast growing Covid-19 surge in India, which reported more than 366,000 new daily cases on Monday. The variant has already spread to more than 30 countries, according to the WHO, including the U.S., the U.K., France and Japan.
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The variant became the fourth so classified by the WHO. The U.N. agency has also given the same designation to the B.1.1.7 variant first identified in Southeast England, the B.1.35 variant found in South Africa; and the P.1 variant discovered by researchers in Brazil.
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