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.