NIH thoroughly monitoring different coronavirus variants: health ministry

ISLAMABAD: The National Institute of Health (NIH) thoroughly monitoring different variants of the coronavirus, quoting a spokesperson of the Ministry of National Health, ARY News reported on Tuesday.

Different variants of the virus being monitored with genome sequencing of the test samples, according to the spokesperson.

“In May and June, presence of different variants of the coronavirus was confirmed in the country,” health ministry spokesperson said.

Alpha, Beta and Delta variants of the coronavirus have been confirmed in Pakistan, spokesperson said. Alpha, Beta and Delta viruses were first found in UK, South Africa and India.

The NIH is following the protocols with regard to foreign origin coronavirus cases, the spokesperson added.

Coronavirus variants with clunky, alphanumeric names were assigned the letters of the Greek Alphabet in a bid to simplify discussion and pronunciation while avoiding stigma.

The World Health Organization in June revealed the new names amid criticism that those given by scientists such as the so-called South African variant which goes by multiple names including B.1.351, 501Y.V2 and 20H/501Y.V2 were too complicated.

As such, the four coronavirus variants considered of concern by the U.N. agency and known generally by the public as the UK, South Africa, Brazil and India variants have now been given the letters Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta according to the order of their detection.