44 countries have now reported the cases of the Covid-19 variant that was first detected in India and is linked to the country’s massive outbreak, where active Covid-19 infections in India have now surpassed 3.7 million. The drastic spike in cases linked to the new variant has led to severe shortages of hospital beds and oxygen to treat patients with critical respiratory symptoms.
WHO called B.1.617 strain a “variant of concern” which seems to be more infectious than the original virus due to the “rapid increases in prevalence in multiple countries.” The World Health Organisation says the B.1.617 Covid variant, which was first found in India back in October, has now been reported in “44 countries in all 6 WHO regions” with Britain reporting the largest number of infections caused by the variant. More than 4,500 samples in the organisation’s open-access database were positive for the B.1.617 variant.