Geneva: The World Health Organization said it had monitored a new Coronavirus variant named MU, added that ‘variants of concern’ had shown signs of possible resistance to vaccines.
In its weekly epidemiological update, which was published on Tuesday, which warned the variant to become increasingly prevalent in Colombia and Ecuador.
MU was first identified in Colombia in January 2021, and since then, there was a “sporadic report” case and outbreak in South America and Europe, WHO said.
While MU’s global prevalence among Covid-19 cases sorted below 0.1 percent, the prevalence has “increased consistently” in Colombia and Ecuador, where it is now responsible for around 39 percent and 13 percent of infections.
Reports on the prevalence of variants must be “interpreted by consideration” considering the low sequencing capacity of most countries, the body said.
MU is the fifth variant monitored by WHO since March.
It has a number of mutations that suggest it can be more resistant to vaccines, the health body warns, but emphasizes that further research will be needed to confirm this.
Introduction data shows the effectiveness of a reduced vaccine “similar to the seen for the beta variant”.
Who said he would monitor “the epidemiology of MU variants in South America, especially with co-co-delta circulation …
for change”.
On August 29, more than 4,500 sequences (3.794 B.621 sequences and 856 B.621.1 sequence), the order of genomes, analysis of virus samples taken from patients, has been designated as MU in the last four weeks.
The order is used to track how moving through the population, in the open-source genome repository, known as GISAID.
Although this number will be influenced by sequencing capacity, supervision and total cases in an area.