India COVID cases above 24 million as mutant spreads across globe

India sees 4,000 more deaths and 343,144 new cases amid reports that strain first found there is spreading in the world.

The number of recorded COVID-19 infections in India has climbed above 24 million amid reports on Friday that the highly transmissible coronavirus mutant first detected in the country was spreading across the globe. The B.1.617 variant of the virus, first identified in India, has been found in cases in eight countries of the Americas, including Canada and the United States, Jairo Mendez, a World Health Organization (WHO) infectious diseases expert said on Friday. People infected by the variant included travellers in Panama and Argentina who had arrived from India or Europe. In the Caribbean, cases of the Indian variant have been detected in Aruba, Dutch Sint Maarten and the French department of Guadeloupe.