By Rich Mendez, CNBC •
Updated 1 hour ago
Seth | Xinhua News Agency | Getty Images
Dr. John Nkengasong, director of Africa s Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said he is very concerned about the emergence of a vaccine-resistant strain.
White House senior medical advisor, Dr. Anthony Fauci told reporters Tuesday that the U.S. needs to vaccinate more people before the Delta variant takes hold in the country.
Scientists in the U.S. are currently sequencing just 1.6% of new infections.
Top health officials in Europe and Africa said Wednesday they are worried about the potential emergence of new Covid variants that could render current vaccines useless.
Allowing the coronavirus to spread in other countries jeopardizes gains made in Canada through COVID-19 vaccinations, some scientists suggest. That's because the more opportunities the virus has to spread, the more likely it is to mutate and foil vaccines.
The names allocated so far are:
The variant first found in the UK, called B.1.1.7, will be called Alpha.
The variant first detected in South Africa, called B.1.351, will be called Beta.
The variant first identified in Brazil, called P.1, will be called Gamma.
The variant first found in India, called B.1.617.2, will be called Delta.
The WHO said it decided on using the Greek alphabet after reviewing many potential naming systems and getting advice from experts worldwide.
The WHO said the scientific names were difficult to say and easy to misreport. As a result, people often resort to calling variants by the places where they are detected, which is stigmatizing and discriminatory, it said.