A new coronavirus “variant of interest” named Mu – also known by its scientific name as B.1.621 – is being closely monitored by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the agency has said.
In its weekly epidemiological update, published on Tuesday, WHO warned that the variant was becoming increasingly prevalent in Colombia and Ecuador and had shown signs of possible resistance to vaccines.
Mu was first identified in Colombia in January 2021, and since then there have been “sporadic reports” of cases and outbreaks in South America and Europe, WHO said.
While the global prevalence of Mu among sequenced COVID-19 cases is below 0.1 per cent, its prevalence had consistently increased in Colombia and Ecuador, where it is now responsible for around 39 per cent and 13 per cent of infections, respectively.
Reports on the variant’s prevalence should be interpreted with due consideration given to the low sequencing capacity of most countries, the agency said.
Mu is the fifth variant of interest to be monitored by the WHO since March.
It has a number of mutations that suggest it could be more resistant to vaccines, the health agency warned, but stressed that further research would be needed to confirm this.
Preliminary data show a reduced effectiveness of vaccines “similar to that seen for the Beta variant”.
The WHO said it would be monitoring “the epidemiology of the Mu variant in South America, particularly with the co-circulation of the Delta variant for changes”.
As at August 29, over 4,500 sequences (3,794 B.1.621 sequences and 856 B.1.621.1 sequences), genome sequences, analysed samples of the virus taken from patients, had been designated as Mu in the past four weeks.
Meanwhile, the novel coronavirus pandemic has killed at least 124,811 people in Colombia, according to a WHO report on Wednesday.
More than 4,905,258 confirmed cases have been officially diagnosed across the country since the start of the epidemic. As of Aug. 27, a total of 34,247,170 doses of vaccine had been administered.
News reports from South Africa have said scientists in the country were closely monitoring the development of another new variant there.
However, C.1.2, is not yet a variant to follow, nor a variant of concern, according to the classification of WHO.
“It does not appear that its circulation is increasing,” said Dr. Margaret Harris, a spokesperson for the WHO, at a UN press briefing in Geneva on Tuesday.
