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Recently, the World Health Organisation (WHO) Chief Scientist has clarified that the WHO would soon unveil a system of naming viruses.
Current Virus Naming System
- The WHO and health and science agencies across the world, for instance the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the US’s Centres for Disease Control (CDC) and the Public Health England refer to viruses and their variants by formal lineage names.
- Formal lineage names are a combination of letters and names that point to the relationships between different variants.
- These suggest that variants have certain mutations in common and as well clues to their evolutionary history.
- Since virus names and their associated diseases have frequently been named after geographical places where outbreaks were first reported or samples first isolated, they are also considered to be stigmatising.
- For example, Covid-19 was earlier referred to as the ‘Wuhan virus’.
- With the discovery of important variants of the virus being linked to increased infectiousness, B.1.1.7 started to be known as the ‘UK variant’ and B.1.351 as the ‘South African’ variant.
- The strain B.1.617 was popularly called the ‘Indian variant’.
(Image Courtesy: CDC)
New Naming System
- The new naming system will go live soon and would be inspired from the way cyclones are named.
- This has been done to destigmatize and deincentivise countries from making their sequencing results public.
- It will also be easier for the lay public to remember rather than the complicated lineage numbers.
Naming of Cyclones
World Meteorological Organization
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Source: TH
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