WHO renames COVID-19 variants with Greek letter names to avoid confusion, stigma

 The World Health Organization has created a new system to name COVID-19 variants, getting away from place-based names that can be hard to pronounce, difficult to remember and stigmatizing to a country.

The new system, which was announced Monday, is based on the letters of the Greek alphabet. The United Kingdom variant, called by scientists B.1.1.7, will now be Alpha. B.1.351, the South Africa variant will be Beta, and the B.1.617.2 variant discovered in India will now be known as Delta.

When the 24 letters of the Greek alphabet are used up, WHO will announce another series. 

"It's the right thing to do," said Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease expert at the University of California, San Francisco. 

It may also make countries more open to reporting new variants if they're not afraid of being forever associated with them in the mind of the public. 



In a delivery. WHO said that while logical names enjoy benefits, they can be hard to say and are inclined to distorting. 


"Subsequently, individuals frequently resort to calling variations by where they are distinguished, which is trashing and oppressive," WHO said. 


It's additionally regularly off-base. Where a sickness or infection is first found isn't generally where it in reality initially arose.

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For instance, the Spanish influenza of 1918 is thought by certain scientists to have in reality originally arose in Haskell County, Kansas, or potentially in France. 


On account of the variations of SARS-CoV-2, the infection that causes COVID-19, where they are first distinguished relies more upon how great the genomic reconnaissance framework is in the space where the infection is available, not where the change showed up, Gandhi said.

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