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Amid a fresh wave of the pandemic led by the highly transmissible Omicron variant, first discovered in South Africa in November 2021, a new variant, IHU, found in France has triggered fresh apprehension.
The strain has reportedly more mutations than Omicron and 12 cases caused by this variant have already been found. The World Health Organization has acknowledged the variant but said it has not become much of a threat as of now.
WHO said the variant was first identified in November and it has been on the radar since then. The virus had a lot of chances to pick up, Abdi Mahamud, a WHO incident manager on Covid, said.
WHO monitors multiple variants and assesses their risk factors. IHU has not been labelled as a ‘variant under investigation’ by WHO as of now as the cases are limited to France.
Scientists are of the opinion that Omicron which is spreading at an alarming rate is of a higher concern than IHU as it has already been there for some months. Vinod Scaria, a scientist of Delhi’s Institute of Genomic and Integrative Biology, tweeted on Tuesday, “Nothing to panic or worry too much (about) at the moment, given the evidence. But clearly, something that needs to be watched closely for the coming weeks.”
The variant has popped up in discussions because of a week-old study by researchers from Méditerranée Infection in Marseille, part of France’s Instituts hospitalo-universitaires (IHU, or University Hospital Institutes).
According to reports, the variant was identified in 12 people in the southern Alps around the same time when Omicron was discovered.
