Variant names written in stars after all Greek alphabet is used

NEW coronavirus variants are to be named after star constellations when all the letters in the Greek alphabet are used, a senior World Health Organisation official has said.

Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s technical chief for Covid-19, said the UN health agency was already looking at names for mutations amid fears there will be more concerning variants than the 24 letters of the Greek alphabet.

That system was introduced in late May and so far 11 mutations have been named: four variants of concern, including delta and beta; four variants of interest, such as eta and lambda; plus epsilon, zeta and theta, thought to be “of interest” but since downgraded.

Dr Van Kerkhove said star constellations were the frontrunner, suggesting there could one day be variants known as Aries, Gemini or Orion. Alternatives including Greek gods and goddesses have been dismissed, partly because of concerns about pronunciation.

“We will possibly run out of the Greek alphabet, but we’re looking at the next series of names,” said Dr Van Kerkhove, who requested a colloquial naming system last year to prevent variants being linked to places – a practice deemed discriminatory by the WHO.

The WHO’s legal team is examining proposals to “make sure we don’t upset anyone with these names”, Dr Van Kerkhove said.

It comes as efforts to track new variants are intensified, amid concerns that a mutation could emerge which evades existing vaccines. “It’s a real threat,” said Dr Van Kerkhove.

She added that a dangerous new variant was more likely to emerge in areas with intense transmission rates, in animal populations such as mink farms, and in places with high vaccination rates where the virus is still circulating widely.

Yet gaping “blind spots” in the global surveillance network remain, with many places still relying on patchy testing and limited sequencing capacity.