SARS-CoV-2 was first detected in late December 2019, however, in the few months that followed, the resultant COVID-19 disease has developed into a devastating pandemic around the world [[1]]. This has led to a race to produce a safe and efficacious vaccine in record time. In less than a year, BNT162b2, an mRNA-based vaccine developed by BioNTech-Pfizer [[2]], became the first ever approved COVID-19 vaccine in December 2020. However, this coincided with the emergence of multiple variants. These variants, though originated from different countries such as United Kingdom, South Africa, Brazil, India and United States of America in five different continents, have now spread globally, resulting in second and third waves of COVID-19 cases around the world. In order to prioritize the global monitoring and research to guide the ongoing response to the pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO), in partner with various authorities worldwide, prompted the characterization of specific Variants of Interest (VOIs) and Variants of Concern (VOCs) [[3]]. As of 15th June 2021, four VOCs have been defined as they are associated with one or more of the following features: increase in transmissibility, increase in virulence, and decrease in effectiveness of available diagnostics, vaccines or therapeutics. These include the Alpha (B.1.1.7), Beta (B.1.351), Gamma (P.1) and Delta (B.1.617.2) variants. In addition to these four VOCs, another seven strains were classified as VOIs, including Epsilon (B.1.427/B.1.429), Zeta (P.2), Eta (B.1.525), Theta (P.3), Iota (B.1.526), Kappa (B.1.617.1) and Lambda (C.37) [[3]].