Just in the middle of the sixth wave of the coronavirus pandemic and the explosion of infections caused by the new Omicron variant, the French health authorities announced that they have detected a new variant of the virus in a group of people who would have been in contact with a traveler from Cameroon. It is a hitherto unknown variant of the virus, which has already been detected in French territory, specifically in Marseille, and which contains 46 mutations, reports the Levante web portal .
According to the University Hospital Institute of Marseille, the discovery originated when, on December 9, they communicated through their Twitter account that they had baptized this variant with its own acronym, IHU.
The researchers published at the end of December a pre-study, still pending validation by their peers, on this “IHU variant” called B.1.640.2 of which little is still known, taking into account the limited number of registered cases. .
According to information issued by the center specializing in infectious diseases, created and directed by the controversial doctor Didier Raoult, the first of these cases found by scientists were located in the town of Forcalquier, in the department of Alpes de Haute Provence. A dozen are known to be in the Marseille region associated with trips to Cameroon.
Un nouveau variant COVID-19 à été détecté à l'IHU Méditerranée Infection issu de patients de Forcalquier. Il a été baptisé variant IHU et déposé sur GISAID sous le nom de B.1.640.2. pic.twitter.com/Rh3klIxy0w
— IHU Méditerranée Infection (@IHU_Marseille) December 9, 2021
No data on whether it is more contagious
Most of these mutations affect the proteins that cover the virus coat and it is an evolutionary mechanism typical of this type of coronavirus.
Currently, there are no data on the behavior of this variant or on whether or not it is more infectious than the Delta and Omicron variants. Neither has any data been provided at the moment on whether the patients in whom the IHU variant has been detected have developed some type of severe disease.
A particular element that stands out from the “IHU variant is that one of its mutations is associated with a possible increase in the transmission of the virus.
What is known about the new variant
The epidemiologist of the American Federation of Scientists, Eric Feigl-Ding, assured that although new variants appear every week, not all are dangerous.
However, he warned that the risk of these has to do with “its ability to multiply by the number of mutations it has in relation to the original virus.”
It is important to bear in mind that the World Health Organization (WHO) classifies the variants of the coronavirus into three large groups: variants of concern (such as omicron or delta), variants of interest (such as lambda or mu) and variants under surveillance (Breton ).
For that reason, according to Semana , the international organization is expected to advance in new studies and analysis to understand if the IHU variant and its “atypical combinations” are elevated to a category of worrying or interesting variant, taking into account the level contagion or resistance to current vaccines.
