India has reportedly been asking social media platforms to remove references to a "Indian alternative" to COVID-19

 The scientific community discourages calling place names for virus variants

The government of India has sent notifications to social media platforms asking them to remove content that refers to a "Indian variant" of the COVID-19 virus, Reuters reported. The letter sent by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology on Friday has not been made public, but has been shown by several news outlets.

It was unclear what social media received the message, but the government of India recently ordered Twitter to remove tweets, Facebook and Instagram to delete posts critical of its handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

“There is no such variant of COVID-19 that has been scientifically cited as such by the World Health Organization (WHO). The World Health Organization has not linked the term“ Indian variant ”to the B.1.617 variant of the Coronavirus in any of its reports.” As it was stated in the letter, adding that the phrase is "completely wrong."

A type of coronavirus was first detected in India last year, and B.1.617 is believed to be responsible for the recent wave of COVID-19 cases in South Asia. The World Health Organization has classified it as a form of global concern, with some evidence that it is more contagious than other strains of the virus.

But while India's approach to censoring information about the coronavirus and variants is extreme, the WHO and other health organizations and scientists criticize the practice of referring to viruses and variants with geographic aliases, as they can be stigmatizing and imprecise. The 2015 WHO guidelines on naming infectious diseases do not encourage the use of place names, human names, or animal species' names.

However, as National Geographic notes in its very good explanation of how virus variants get their names, current naming conventions are cumbersome and confusing, making them difficult for non-scientists to understand or remember. National Geographic reports that the WHO is working with virologists to find a new way to name viruses.