Vinod Scaria, an employee at CSIR Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology of India, said that a new variant of coronavirus was discovered in West Bengal, an Indian state.
''B.1.618 - a new lineage of SARS-CoV-2 predominnatly found in India and characterized by a distinct set of genetic variants including E484K, a major immune escape variant,'' Vinod Scaria said in his tweet.
According to Mr. Scaria, ''initial sequences in the B.1.618 lineage were found in West Bengal, India. Members of this lineage are also found in other parts of the world, … but do not have the full complement of variants as found in India.''