The World Health Organization (WHO) says that it is monitoring a coronavirus variant detected in a small number of patients in southern France, but that, for now, there is little reason to worry about its spread.
The variant, identified as B.1.640.2, has been found in 12 people in the southern Alps and was first identified in October and uploaded to Gisaid, a database for disease variants, on Nov. 4. around the same time that the now-dominant omicron variant was first found in South Africa.
The New York Times is reporting that only about 20 samples have been sequenced so far, experts said this week and only one since early December.
The “IHU” variant, nicknamed by researchers at the Marseille-based Mediterranee Infection University Hospital Institute (IHU), is believed to be Cameroonian in origin, reports The Hill.
The first patient believed to be infected by the strain was vaccinated and had recently returned to France after traveling to Cameroon.
Researchers from the IHU outlined their findings in a preprint paper on MedRxiv.org., released December 29, which has yet to be peer-reviewed. The variant has 46 mutations and 37 deletions in its genetic code, many affecting the spike protein.
Not a variant of concern at this point
Abdi Mahmud, a Covid incident manager with the W.H.O., told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday that the variant had been on the agency’s radar since November, but added that it did not appear to have spread widely over the past two months.
He pointed out that the Omicron variant, which was first uploaded to Gisaid on Nov. 23, has more than 120,000 sequences in the database. It has been detected in at least 128 countries, according to the WHO, and is fueling record-high case numbers in many parts of the world.
And researchers from the IHU are saying the same thing as WHO, emphasizing that they were monitoring the variant and that it’s too early to say much about the strain based on the low number of known cases.
“It is too early to speculate on virological, epidemiological, or clinical features of this IHU variant based on these 12 cases,” researchers wrote.
And as Forbes is reporting, there is no need to be alarmed, nor is there a need to add to the stash of toilet paper crowding your linen closet. Their final word? “Remember different doesn’t necessarily mean worse. Nevertheless, this new variant does merit some close watching.”
