Health Officials in France Discovered a New Strain of COVID-19

Health officials have discovered a new COVID-19 variant named IHU in France. 

Health officials have detected 46 mutations, which is more than was found in omicron. So far, only 12 people have been infected. They live in an area near Marseille, located in the south of France. All of the IHU cases have been traced back to travel to Cameroon.  

IHU has not yet been detected in any other countries. 

The World Health Organization does not consider the IHU strain enough of a concern to label it as a variant of concern. To earn that distinction, the variant would need to present as highly transmissible, show an increase in virulence, or decrease vaccine effectiveness. 

The detection of the new coronavirus variant comes as the U.S. grapples with a surge in omicron cases. Last week, omicron accounted for 95 percent of all new cases. On Monday, the U.S. saw its daily case rate exceed 1 million new cases.