India Covid crisis: Not preventing variants will 'haunt us'

India has seen soaring infection rates, a rapidly rising death toll and the discovery of a new virus variant as the UK added the country onto its travel red list. Sir Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust, told the Today programme “we would be better advised to prevent new variants arising in the rest of the world, which will come back to haunt us, if we don't drive down transmission everywhere”. Martha Kearney spoke to Sir Farrar about the second wave of infections, as well as Dr Saswati Sinha, critical care specialist at a hospital in Kolkata; Dr Atul Gogia, a consultant at Sir Ganga Ram hospital in New Delhi; and Jyot Jeet Singh, who runs a charity which helps poorer families cremate bodies. (Image: A patient wearing an oxygen mask in New Delhi, India; credit: Reuters)