NEW DELHI – A potentially worrisome variant of the coronavirus detected in India may spread more easily. But the country is behind in doing the kind of testing needed to track it and understand it better.
On Monday, the World Health Organization designated the new version of the virus a “variant of concern" based on preliminary research, alongside those that were first detected in Britain, South Africa and Brazil but have spread to other countries. “We need much more information about this virus variant," said Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO's technical lead for COVID-19. "We need more sequencing, targeted sequencing to be done and to be shared in India and elsewhere so that we know how much of this virus is circulating.” Viruses mutate