GENEVA, August 31. / TASS /. The World Health Organization (WHO) has added the B.1.621 strain of coronavirus identified in Colombia in January to its monitoring list as a variant of interest (VOI). According to the data released by the WHO on Tuesday, it is designated by the letter of the Greek alphabet “mu” and ranks next to other strains in this category previously discovered: “eta”, “iota”, “kappa” and “lambda”.
The strains of the VOI group, as explained in the WHO, are variants of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that have “genetic changes that are predicted or known to affect such characteristics of the virus as infectiousness, the severity of the disease, the ability to avoid exposure to immunity, and avoid diagnosis and therapy. ” In addition, variations in this category can lead to “significant [infection] spread in communities” as well as to the emergence of disease outbreaks, which in turn suggests “a global public health risk”.
Even more dangerous is a group of strains classified by the WHO as “variants of concern” (VOC). These are alpha, beta, gamma, and delta. They spread more easily, cause more serious illness, avoid the body's immune response, and also change the clinical picture or reduce the effectiveness of health tools used against them, the organization explained.
The WHO stressed that strains can be excluded from the VOI and VOC groups. This will happen if they no longer “pose an additional major health risk compared to other circulating options.” The degree of danger of the strains and the validity of their inclusion in the WHO monitoring list are assessed by the organization's experts from the technical advisory group on the evolution of viruses.
As of August 31, WHO has received reports of 216,867,420 cases of coronavirus infection and 4,507,837 deaths registered in the world since the beginning of the pandemic.
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