COVID Variant First Detected in India Spreads to Nearly 50 Countries Voice of America 12 May 2021, 22:05 GMT+10 A day after declaring the COVID-19 variant first detected in India as one of global concern, the World Health Organization announced Wednesday that the variant has spread to 49 countries. The U.N. health agency's new concern about the B.1.617 variant comes as India recorded 4,205 COVID-19 deaths, a new one-day record that pushed the South Asian nation's overall death toll from the pandemic past the 250,000 mark. India's total number of confirmed COVID-19 infections is now above 23 million after the health ministry reported 348,421 new cases on Wednesday.