Double mutant? B.1.617.? Indian variant? Shakespeare said what’s in a name. It turns out a lot. India is in the
throes of a malignant Covid-19 second wave, and a rapidly spreading variant of Indian origin is being speculated to be culpable for it. But with different titles flying around to name the variants of SARS-COV-2 in circulation, it’s becoming increasingly confusing to converse about the virus with people.
A common and effective way to name the variants is by their origin, places where they were first detected, such as the UK variant, Brazil variant, South Africa variant, and Indian variant. Unfortunately, this nomenclature is in direct violation of the WHO guidelines laid down to name a new infectious disease. The guidelines advise against naming diseases concerning any community or place, and reasonably so. However, the onus of naming viruses falls on the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV). Linking infectious agents such as viruses to a people can be detrimental for that community. The recent rise in Asian hate crimes in America can be connected to its ex-president Donald Trump christening coronavirus as ‘Chinese virus’. Not just in the US, similar treatment is being meted out to the South-Asian people across the globe. A few days back, the government of India rightly questioned the basis for calling B.1.617 the Indian variant.
While this may sound like a petty issue, it isn’t. For example, the 1918 Spanish flu, with which several parallels were drawn in the initial pandemic days, did not originate in Spain. But the name stuck around, much to the chagrin of the Spanish people, I am sure. There is also a scientific argument for it; just because a variant is detected in a country that does not mean that it originated in that country. For all we know, it might have been originated in a different country but stayed under the radar there and found its way to the country where it was first detected through travel.
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Now, how about calling it the double mutant? This is a misnomer; there are many mutations in this variant but only two are of concern namely- E484Q and L452R. On their own, these mutations are not unique and have been found in other variants. It is in the ‘double mutant’ that the two mutations have banded together for the first time. The name B.1.617 sounds technical and difficult to be memorized by the common man because if we name all the variants like this, it will be a mess to remember them. Still, it is the most efficient way to name the virus variants. Classifying variants in a pre-determined order will make it easier for the scientists to know about the variant at first glance. There are two popular nomenclature systems among scientists- Nextstrain and Pango.
An example of the Nextstrain system is 501Y.V2, for the variant of South African origin. 501Y.V2 was so named because that particular virus variant had a mutation of amino acid asparagine (N) to amino acid tyrosine (Y) on the 501st position of the spike protein of coronavirus, V2 signifies that it is the second variant with that mutation. Nextstrain was found to be a mouthful to say and also had its limitations in naming new emerging variants. The Pango classification has since dominated the scientific discourse. Examples of the Pango system are B.1.351 for the one in South Africa, P.2 for the one in Brazil, and B.1.617 for the one in India.
To better understand these figures let us take the example of B.1.351, the variant found in South Africa; B is the first lineage that circulated in China, B.1 is the first lineage of the B lineage of China, responsible for the Italian outbreak, and B.1.351 signifies that it is the 351st lineage of the virus that caused the Italian outbreak.
Phew! A little difficult to wrap your head, isn’t it? We can all agree that though the Pango system is great for scientists, it is a bit too much for the common man to digest. Researchers are actively looking to find a solution that serves both the parties- the scientists and the ordinary folk. Fingers crossed.
