As the entire world is battling the Delta and Omicron variants of Covid, experts in France has detected a new variant of the pandemic which could be highly infectious. The new variant has been named IHU, as it is detected by experts at The Méditerranée Infection University Hospital Institute (IHU).
IHU could invade vaccine immunity
The new variant was detected in France last month, and experts in the country believe that IHU might have reached the country from Cameroon. According to the latest updates, IHU variant has been confirmed in 12 people from the Marseilles area.
It should be noted that all the 12 people infected with the IHU variant have been hospitalized with severe illness. However, on a more positive note, initial speculations suggest that this strain of the Covid pandemic is not as transmissible as the Delta and the Omicron variants.
Until now, the World Health Organization (WHO) has not classified this variant as a variant of concern. In the coming days, experts at WHO will study more about the new Covid variant, and they may soon name it with Greek letters.
IHU variant of Covid: All you need to know
In the study report, experts revealed that the IHU variant might have initially infected a fully vaccinated man who reached France from Cameroon in November.
"Subsequent detection by qPCR of three mutations in the spike gene to screen for variants, as systematically performed in France in case of SARS-CoV-2 positivity, revealed an atypical combination with L452R-negativity, E484K-positivity, and E484Q-negativity ... that did not correspond to the pattern of the Delta variant involved in almost all SARS-CoV-2 infections at that time," read the paper.
It is still unclear whether the IHU variant of Covid has reached other countries apart from France. However, unconfirmed claims suggest that this new variant could have already reached the United Kingdom.
