COVID-19: Nepal confirms cases of Kappa mutant of Delta variant

WHY IN THE NEWS?

Nepal’s Ministry of Health and Population on July 27, 2021, confirmed the detection of the mutant Kappa variant (B.1.617.1) of COVID-19’s Delta variant. Nepal had already confirmed the presence of Alpha and Delta variants in the country.

What is Kappa variant (B.1.617.1)?

• The Kappa (B.1.617.1) and Delta (B.1.617.2) variants are the mutants of the B.1.617 variant that was earlier commonly referred to as the Double Mutant or ‘Indian variant’.
• The World Health Organization (WHO) has identified the Kappa variant as Variant of Interest (VoI).

Why were the COVID-19 variants labelled?

• In order to end the linkage of the variants with origin countries, the World Health Organization (WHO) named these variants after the letters of the Greek alphabet.
• As per WHO, the new naming system aims at making the discussion of variants as simple, easy to say, and remember as possible.

The naming of different COVID-19 variants

• The UK variant (B.1.1.7) was named Alpha, the South Africa variant (B.1.351) was named Beta, and the Brazil variant (P.1) was named Gamma.