As the world deals with the Delta Covid-19 variant, the World Health Organisation on Friday designated another variant, labelled as 'Lambda', as a 'Variant of Interest' (VOI).
WHO in it's weekly bulletin said that the Lambda variant was initially detected in Peru in August 2020 and has since been reported in 29 nations around the world, mostly in Latin America, including Argentina and Chile.
The global health body said that the Lambda variant has been monitored "as an alert for an extended period", and has been associated with "substantive rates of community transmission" in multiple countries.
The WHO bulletin, however, also added that there is currently "limited evidence" on the full extent of the impact associated with this variant, and "robust studies need to be conducted into the phenotypic impacts to formulate a plan on countermeasures.