Beautiful Virgin Islands

Wednesday, Oct 15, 2025

Lambda: All You Need To Know About Latest Covid Variant

Lambda: All You Need To Know About Latest Covid Variant

Reported first in Peru in December 2020, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared Lambda as a "variant of interest" on June 14.

A new coronavirus variant, Lambda, has emerged. Scientists and experts see the latest variant of the virus that causes COVID-19 as a fresh threat to the gains made over the last year or so. The World Health Organisation (WHO) declared Lambda as a "variant of interest" on June 14. However, according to WHO, the first case of this variant, earlier known as C.37, was reported in December 2020.

When does a variant become a "variant of interest"?


The world health body designates a variant as a "variant of interest" when its genetic changes are predicted or known to affect important characteristics, including transmissibility, disease severity, immune escape, diagnostic or therapeutic escape. The WHO also says that a variant becomes a "variant of interest" when it is identified as a cause for significant community transmission or multiple COVID-19 clusters, in multiple countries, with increasing relative prevalence alongside the increasing number of cases over time. Besides, such a variant also shows signs of other apparent "epidemiological impacts" to suggest an emerging risk to global public health.

The United Kingdom health body, Public Health England (PHE), designated Lambda as a "variant under investigation" on June 23, a day after the country reported a total of 6 cases.

Where was the Lambda variant first detected?


The Lambda variant of SARS-CoV-2 was first detected in December 2020 in Peru, but the WHO declared it as a "variant of interest" only on June 14. The reason? According to a report in Financial Times, only one person in every 200 cases reported this variant. The number has now risen to 80% of today's COVID-19 cases in the South American country. Not just that, Peru also has the world's highest mortality rate, but there is no evidence to conclude that Lambda is the reason behind it.

Countries reporting Lambda:


Data at GISAID, a global science initiative, shows that at least 31 countries have reported the latest variant. Among these countries are the United States, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany and Switzerland etc.

Does it escape vaccines?


Even though there's limited information available about whether or not the Lamda variant escapes the vaccines, researchers in Chile have published the results of a study they carried out. According to the conclusions of the preprint paper, mutations present in the spike protein of the Lambda variant of interest confer increased infectivity and immune escape from neutralizing antibodies triggered by CoronaVac, the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine. Even though the study was limited to just one vaccine, researchers said that massive vaccination drives that are currently underway must also be accompanied by strict genomic surveillance. It will allow the "identification of new isolates carrying spike mutations and immunology studies aimed to determine the impact of these mutations in immune escape and vaccine breakthrough," the study said.

While scientists at PHE expressed concerns that the latest strain of SARS-CoV-2 may spread quickly and may also be more resistant to vaccines, they emphasised there was no evidence corroborating the Lambda variant caused more severe disease or reduced the effectiveness of current vaccines.

Has India reported any case yet?


The latest variant, Lambda, of the novel coronavirus has not been recorded in India so far, news agency ANI reported on Wednesday quoting sources.

 

India reported 43,733 new cases of coronavirus in the last 24 hours against Tuesday's 34,703. The health ministry website showed 930 related deaths. The total number of cases now stands at 3,06,63,665 cases and 4,04,211 deaths in the country.

Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
EU Deploys New Biometric Entry/Exit System: What Non-EU Travelers Must Know
Australian Prime Minister’s Private Number Exposed Through AI Contact Scraper
Ex-Microsoft Engineer Confirms Famous Windows XP Key Was Leaked Corporate License, Not a Hack
China’s lesson for the US: it takes more than chips to win the AI race
Australia Faces Demographic Risk as Fertility Falls to Record Low
California County Reinstates Mask Mandate in Health Facilities as Respiratory Illness Risk Rises
Israel and Hamas Agree to First Phase of Trump-Brokered Gaza Truce, Hostages to Be Freed
French Political Turmoil Elevates Marine Le Pen as Rassemblement National Poised for Power
China Unveils Sweeping Rare Earth Export Controls to Shield ‘National Security’
The Davos Set in Decline: Why the World Economic Forum’s Power Must Be Challenged
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
×