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A new coronavirus “variant of interest” named Mu is actively being monitored by the World Health Organization, warning that the new variant has indicators of possible vaccination resistance.
In its weekly pandemic newsletter on Tuesday, the UN health agency said it was initially detected in Colombia – also known by scientific name as B.1.621 – and since then, “sporadic reports” of cases and major outbreaks have occurred in South America and Europe.
In the UK, Europe, the USA, and Hong Kong, incidences of the Mu strain were also reported.
The UN health agency has stated that the new ‘variant of interest’ is being examined.
The global prevalence of Mu in sequenced COVID-19 cases is still around 0.1%, but its prevalence has continued to increase in Colombia (39%) and Ecuador (13%).
After the variant was discovered in 39 countries and detected as having a “constellation of mutations that indicate potential properties of immune escape,” it was placed on the WHO’s watch list on 30 August.
Due to the limited sequence capability of most nations, reports about the occurrence of the variation should be “interpreted with due consideration,” the UN agency warned.
Since March, Mu is the fifth variation of interest the WHO has monitored. The WHO has warned that it might be more vaccine-resistant to a number of mutations, but that further research is necessary to prove this.
In addition to the Beta form first detected in South Africa, the UN agency has indicated that the preliminary data can avoid immune defenses, adding that further work must be done to validate that.
“More studies are required to understand the phenotypic and clinical characteristics of this variant,” it stated that the Mu variant’s epidemiology in South America would be followed for changes, particularly with the co-circulation of the Delta variant.
In the four weeks leading up to August 29, nearly 4,500 genome sequences (3,794 B.1.621 sequences and 856 B.1.621.1 sequences) examined samples of the virus received from patients, had been identified as Mu. On an open-source genome repository known as GISAID, the sequences trace how it moves through the population.
The majority of these were recorded in the United States (2,065), Colombia (852), Mexico (357), and Spain (473).
Meanwhile, experts in South Africa are keeping a watchful eye on the growth of yet another new variant.
The probable variant of interest, C.1.2, was first found in South Africa in May this year, according to scientists from the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) and the KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform (KRISP).
As of August 13, C.1.2 had been discovered in China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mauritius, England, New Zealand, Portugal, and Switzerland.
According to the World Health Organization’s classification, C.1.2 is neither a variant to follow nor a variant to be concerned about.
The majority of viruses are transformed throughout time and have little or no impact on the virus’s behavior.
According to surveillance data from Johns Hopkins University, the new coronavirus pandemic killed over 45 lakh people worldwide.
