The World Health Organization(WHO) has renamed COVID-19 variants with letters from the Greek alphabet to avoid confusion and stigma.

The UN health agency renamed the British variant “Alpha”, with the South African variant now known as “Beta.” The variant discovered in India is “Delta” while the one found in Brazil is “Gamma”.

The WHO said on Monday that people often resort to calling variants by the places where they are detected, which is stigmatizing and discriminatory.

It added that the labels would not replace existing scientific names but were "easier and more practical” for use by non-scientific audiences.