The names of the variants were being named as: clades from the Congo Basin (central Africa) and western Africa, due to the virus being endemic in these regions, but last Friday (12) the name was changed to clade I and clade II , to avoid geographic discrimination.
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News
Clade II had two subclades, IIa and IIb – the virus within the latter was responsible for the current global outbreak of the virus.
On Wednesday (17), the UN specified that IIa IIb are related and share a recent common ancestor, therefore, IIb is not a branch of IIa.
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Study
Clade IIb contains viruses collected in the 1970s and from 2017 onwards.
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“Looking at the genome, we see some genetic differences between the viruses from the current outbreak and the old ‘clade IIb’ viruses,” the WHO told AFP.
Suggestion
The WHO asked the public for help in defining a new name, with a website where anyone can make suggestions.
(with AFP)
