India death toll passes 250,000; WHO voices concern
Variant found in 44 countries
The World Health Organization said on Wednesday that a variant of COVID-19 behind the acceleration of India's explosive outbreak has been found in dozens of countries all over the world.
"And WHO has received reports of detections from five additional countries," it said in its weekly epidemiological update on the pandemic.
India said on Wednesday a record number of people were killed by the coronavirus in the past 24 hours, pushing its overall death toll over a quarter million, while a leading virologist said it was too early to say if infections had reached a peak.
Deaths from COVID-19 swelled by 4,205, while daily coronavirus cases rose by 348,421, with India's overall number of cases surging past 23 million, according to health ministry data. Even then, experts believe the official numbers grossly underestimate the real scale of the epidemic's impact, and actual deaths and infections could be five to ten times higher. India's COVID-19 infection curve may be showing early signs of flattening, but the decline in the number of new infections is likely to be slow, said Shahid Jameel, a top Indian virologist.
"It is still too early to say whether we have reached the peak," he was quoted as saying by the Indian Express newspaper. "There is some indication of the cases plateauing. But we must not forget that this is a very high plateau. We seem to be plateauing around 400,000 cases a day."
Outside of India, it said that Britain had reported the largest number of COVID-19 cases caused by the variant.
On Monday, the WHO declared B.1.617 - which counts three so-called sub-lineages with slightly different mutations and characteristics - as a "variant of concern." It was therefore added to the list containing three other variants of COVID-19 - those first detected in Britain, Brazil and South Africa. The WHO explained Wednesday that B.1.617 was added to the list because it appears to be transmitting more easily than the original virus, pointing to the "rapid increases in prevalence in multiple countries." It also pointed to "preliminary evidence" that the variant was more resistant to treatment.
Relatives attend to a Covid-19 patient receiving free oxygen, supplied by Khalsa Help International, at the Shri Guru Singh Sabha Gurudwara in the Indirapurma township of Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, India, on Tuesday. Photo: VCG
The UN health agency said the B.1.617 variant of COVID-19, first found in India in October, had been detected in more than 4,500 samples uploaded to an open-access database "from 44 countries in all six WHO regions.""And WHO has received reports of detections from five additional countries," it said in its weekly epidemiological update on the pandemic.
India said on Wednesday a record number of people were killed by the coronavirus in the past 24 hours, pushing its overall death toll over a quarter million, while a leading virologist said it was too early to say if infections had reached a peak.
Deaths from COVID-19 swelled by 4,205, while daily coronavirus cases rose by 348,421, with India's overall number of cases surging past 23 million, according to health ministry data. Even then, experts believe the official numbers grossly underestimate the real scale of the epidemic's impact, and actual deaths and infections could be five to ten times higher. India's COVID-19 infection curve may be showing early signs of flattening, but the decline in the number of new infections is likely to be slow, said Shahid Jameel, a top Indian virologist.
"It is still too early to say whether we have reached the peak," he was quoted as saying by the Indian Express newspaper. "There is some indication of the cases plateauing. But we must not forget that this is a very high plateau. We seem to be plateauing around 400,000 cases a day."
Outside of India, it said that Britain had reported the largest number of COVID-19 cases caused by the variant.
On Monday, the WHO declared B.1.617 - which counts three so-called sub-lineages with slightly different mutations and characteristics - as a "variant of concern." It was therefore added to the list containing three other variants of COVID-19 - those first detected in Britain, Brazil and South Africa. The WHO explained Wednesday that B.1.617 was added to the list because it appears to be transmitting more easily than the original virus, pointing to the "rapid increases in prevalence in multiple countries." It also pointed to "preliminary evidence" that the variant was more resistant to treatment.
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