KAPPA VARIANT: COVID-19
- Recently, two cases of the Kappa variant of Covid-19 have been recorded in Uttar Pradesh (UP).
- The Delta and Kappa variants are actually siblings, the direct descendants of a variant that earlier used to be referred to as the double mutant, or B.1.617.
- According to World Health Organisation (WHO), Kappa is one of the two Covid-19 variants –– the other being Delta –– first identified in India.
- Kappa is not a new variant of Covid-19. According to the WHO, this variant was first identified in India in October 2020.
- It still listed among ‘variants of interest’, and not ‘variants of concern’, by the WHO.