UPSC Articles
New Naming System For Virus Variants
Part of: GS Prelims and GS-II – Health
In news
- The World Health Organization (WHO) would unveil a system of naming of coronavirus variants similar to the way hurricanes are named
Key takeaways
- The initiative seeks to remove stigma that gets attached to the country it was discovered in.
- It will also be easier for the public to remember rather than their lineage numbers
- Scientists refer to viruses and their variants by formal lineage names, which are a combination of letters and names that point to the relationships between different variants.
- Variants such as B.1.1.7 and B.1.617 suggest that they have certain mutations in common and provide clues to their evolutionary history.
- However, 1.1.7 started to be known as the ‘U.K. variant’ and B.1.351 as the ‘South African’ variant.
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