The WHO warned that the Delta coronavirus variant is the 'fittest' strain yet and will 'pick off' the most vulnerable people

A nurse puts on her PPE before tending to a COVID-19 patient in Essen, Germany.

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• The Delta coronavirus variant is on track to become the dominant strain in many nations.
• WHO officials said Monday that the Delta variant is "faster" and "fitter."
• "It will pick off the more vulnerable more efficiently than previous variants," Dr. Mike Ryan said.
• See more stories on Insider's business page.

World Health Organization officials warned Monday that the Delta coronavirus variant is the fastest-moving and "fittest" variant to date, with the ability to find and kill the weakest people.

At a Monday news conference, Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO's health emergencies program, said Delta has the potential "to be more lethal because it's more efficient in the way it transmits between humans," according to CNBC.

He said the Delta variant "will eventually find those vulnerable individuals who will become severely ill, have to be hospitalized and potentially die."

"This particular delta variant is faster, it is fitter, it will pick off the more vulnerable more efficiently than previous variants, and therefore if there are people left without vaccination, they remain even at further risk," Ryan added, according to CNBC.

Funeral pyres for COVID-19 victims are seen in India, where the Delta variant was first identified.

Altaf Qadri/AP

The WHO is asking wealthier nations to help combat the spread of the Delta variant by donating more vaccines to poorer countries.

Marie Van Kerkhove, the WHO's technical lead for COVID-19, said Monday that the Delta variant had spread to 92 countries, CNBC reports.

"Unfortunately, we don't yet have the vaccines in the right places to protect people's lives," she said.

The Delta variant was first identified in India, which experienced a devastating surge in cases and deaths last month.

The WHO officials said that Delta is on track to become the dominant strain worldwide. It recently eclipsed the Alpha variant as the dominant strain in the UK, and is looking to do the same in the US, where Delta made up 31% of cases last week, according to Financial Times estimates.

Last month, the Delta variant was labeled a "variant of concern," meaning it was likely to be more transmissible, more deadly, and more impervious to vaccination.

Delta appears to be 60% more transmissible than the Alpha variant, which was already 50% more transmissible than the original coronavirus strain.

Data from the UK - where Delta now makes up 90% of cases - also suggests that the risk of hospitalization is higher for Delta sufferers.

Delta also appears to be less protected by partial vaccinations. Research shows that just one shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Oxford University-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccines give just 33% protection against symptomatic Delta cases, compared to 88% of other variants. Two doses of these vaccines have been found to protect against hospitalization for the variant, however.

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