WHO Urges Action To Suppress Covid Before Deadlier Variants Emerge

The highly-transmissible variant, first detected in India, has now surfaced in 132 countries and territories, the World Health Organization said.

The Delta variant of Covid-19 is a warning to the world to suppress the virus quickly before it mutates again into something even worse, the WHO said Friday. The highly-transmissible variant, first detected in India, has now surfaced in 132 countries and territories, the World Health Organization said. "Delta is a warning: it's a warning that the virus is evolving but it is also a call to action that we need to move now before more dangerous variants emerge," the WHO's emergencies director Michael Ryan told a press conference. WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus added: "So far, four variants of concern have emerged -- and there will be more as long as the virus continues to spread."