With the view of helping the public discussion in calling the variants of the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) has given new names to the variants that emerged across the globe using Greek alphabets. As per the naming drive, the B.1.617.1 and B.1.617.2 variants of COVID-19, first identified in India, have been named as 'Kappa' and 'Delta' respectively. 

The WHO has on Monday announced that it had named various variants of the Coronavirus using Greek alphabets. On Monday, WHO's technical COVID-19 lead Dr Maria Van Kerkhove took to Twitter and said, "Today, WHO announces new, easy-to-say labels for #SARSCoV2 Variants of Concern (VOCs) and Interest (VOIs). They will not replace existing scientific names but are aimed to help in public discussion of VOI/VOC." 

While the UN Health Agency has named the Indian COVID-19 variants as 'Kappa' and 'Delta', it has named the Britain variant as 'Alpha', South Africa's variant as 'Beta', Brazil's variant as 'Gama', and the variant found in the United States as 'Epsilon'. In a statement, the UN health agency said on Monday that an expert group convened by WHO has recommended labelling using letters of the Greek Alphabet, which will be easier and more practical to discuss by non-scientific audiences. 

The statement said, "The established nomenclature systems for naming and tracking SARS-CoV-2 genetic lineages by GISAID, Nextstrain, and Pango are currently and will remain in use by scientists and in scientific research." It has said that WHO and its international networks of experts are monitoring changes to the virus. 

The WHO said, "If significant mutations are identified, we can inform countries and the public about any changes needed to react to the variant, and prevent its spread." Dr Kerkhove said that each variant will be given a name from the Greek alphabet, in a bid to both simplify the public discussion and to strip some of the stigmas from the emergence of new variants. She further said that when the 24 letters of the Greek alphabet have been exhausted, another series like it will be announced. 

"No country should be stigmatized for detecting and reporting variants. Globally, we need robust surveillance for variants and we need to continue to do all we can to reduce the spread of SARS-CoV-2", she added. WHO's Frank Konings, who is the Chief of the naming group, said that the initial plan was to create a bunch of two-syllable names that aren't words.  

He said that it quickly became apparent that too many were actually already claimed - some were the names of companies or locations, others were family names. Combining three syllabi didn't solve the problem and four syllabi became unwieldy. "I heard it's sometimes quite a challenge to come to an agreement with regards to nomenclature. This was a relatively straightforward discussion in getting to the point where everybody agreed", Konings added.