SARS CoV 2 the virus that causes COVID 19 has had a major impact on human health globally infecting a large number of people causing severe disease and associated long term health sequelae resulting in death and excess mortality especially among older and vulnerable populations interrupting routine healthcare services disruptions to travel trade education and many other societal functions and more broadly having a negative impact on peoples physical and mental health Since the start of the COVID 19 pandemic WHO has received several reports of unusual public health events possibly due to variants of SARS CoV 2 WHO routinely assesses if variants of SARS CoV 2 result in changes in transmissibility clinical presentation and severity or if they impact on countermeasures including diagnostics therapeutics and vaccines Previous reports of the D614G mutation and the recent reports of virus variants from the Kingdom of Denmark the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Republic of South Africa have raised interest and concern in the impact of viral changes A variant of SARS CoV 2 with a D614G substitution in the gene encoding the spike protein emerged in late January or early February 2020 Over a period of several months the D614G mutation replaced the initial SARS CoV 2 strain identified in China and by June 2020 became the dominant form of the virus circulating globally Studies in human respiratory cells and in animal models demonstrated that compared to the initial virus strain the strain with the D614G substitution has increased infectivity and transmission The SARS CoV 2 virus with the D614G substitution does not cause more severe illness or alter the effectiveness of existing laboratory diagnostics therapeutics vaccines or public health preventive measures