Everything About IHU The New Variant of Corona

What is the IHU Variant of Corona:

News about the emergence of another highly-mutated variant of Coronavirus, which spread rapidly on Tuesday, raised fears of another wave of infections even as the Omicron variant of Coronavirus continues to spread widely across the globe. As of so far, B.1.640 has been detected mostly in France, although it has also been found in a few other countries. Some of the 46 mutations were reported to be found in the spike protein of the variant.

Is the IHU Variant of Corona is a New Variant?

Corona variant B.1.640 is not a new variant. At least three months have passed since it was last seen. Researchers at Méditerranée Infection located in Marseille, a group within France's Institutes hospitalo-universitaires (IHU) sparked the discussion around it by sending out a week-old study.

A new variant was found in a group of 12 people living in the same geographical area of south-eastern France last November, including one who had been to Cameroon. Scientists reported that the variant found in these individuals was very similar to the variant that was discovered earlier and named IHU.

Researchers refer to the first IHU variant discovered in January of last year as variant B.1.640, according to global databases. Scientists have now classified the one they discovered among people in November as a sub-lineage of B.1.640.2.

Is IHU Variant of Corona Spread Quicker?

At least 400 infections have been identified so far with the variant B.1.640, according to outbreak.info, a website that tracks the prevalence of diseases in genome sequencing databases. The virus has been reported in 19 different countries. There are about 90,000 sequences from India in these global databases; one of these happens to be from India as well. France has confirmed the most cases of this variant, with 287 confirmed so far. The UK has confirmed 16 cases, while Germany has confirmed 17. The country with the highest percentage of B.1.640 lineages appear to be Congo, where 39 of the 454 genome sequences completed so far include this variant.

Researchers and the public are concerned about mutations in this variant. There has been no alarming rate of spread for B.1.640. The spread of Omicron didn't seem to be nearly as alarming. Last detected on December 25, this variant has been listed on outbreak.info. The global databases have not detected any cases since then. Given the evidence, there's nothing to be worried about at this point. On Tuesday, Vinod Scaria, a scientist at the Delhi Institute of Genomic and Integrative Biology, said the situation should be closely monitored.