自2019年12月2019冠状病毒病暴发流行以来，严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒 2 型已经产生了1万个以上的变异株。其中有些可能获得更强的传染性，有的致病性得以提高，有的或许不能被现有的检测试剂检测出来，还有的也许能够逃逸疫苗的免疫保护作用。世界卫生组织于2021年5月31日发布了针对这些变异株的新的命名系统。本文对当前世界上流行较广的4个变异株进行综述，包括最近在广州市引起小暴发的δ变异株。

Since the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has generated more than 10 000 variants. Some of them deserve our concern because it may become more infectious, or show increased pathogenicity with higher mortality, or it is no longer detectable with current assays, or it may evade immune protection conferred by available vaccines. On May 31, World Health Organization (WHO) proposed a new system to name SARS-CoV-2 variants. In this review, four worldwide spread SARS-CoV-2 variants were discussed comprehensively, including the India variant that is responsible for recent endemic of COVID-19 in Guangzhou.