Scientists in France have identified a new COVID-19 strain which was found to have “46 mutations.”
Named IHU, the new B.1.640.2 variant has not been found in other countries except in France where it has infected at least 12 people living in the southeastern area.
In a paper published by medRxiv which has yet to be peer reviewed, the researchers said the first case was linked to a person with travel to Cameroon.
It is “too early to speculate on virological, epidemiological or clinical features of this IHU variant based on these 12 cases,” the researchers said.
IHU has not been labeled as a variant under investigation by the World Health Organization.
In a long Twitter thread, epidemiologist and a fellow at Federation of American Scientists, Eric Feigl-Ding said the new variant was being monitored to evaluate how infectious or dangerous it could prove to be.
“There are scores of new variants discovered all the time, but it does not necessarily mean they will be more dangerous. What makes a variant more well-known and dangerous is its ability to multiply because of the number of mutations it has in relation to the original virus.”
“This is when it becomes a ‘variant of concern’ – like Omicron, which is more contagious and more past immunity evasive. It remains to be seen in which category this new variant will fall.”
The WHO said the variant in France, first identified in November around the same time that Omicron was discovered in South Africa last year, has not become much of a threat.
“[The variant] has been on our radar,” Abdi Mahamud, a WHO incident manager on COVID, said. “That virus had a lot of chances to pick up.”