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WHO is now monitoring ‘Mu’ interest

TORONTO – The World Health Organization (WHO) signals a new kind of concern from Colombia called ‘Mu’.

at the agency Weekly epidemiological update The World Health Organization, released on Tuesday, upgraded the Mu variant, also known as B.1.621 virus, to another variant of concern as of Aug. 30, adding that the virus contains “a series of mutations indicative of possible immune escape properties.”

Mu was first identified in January 2021 and since then there have been reports of sporadic and larger outbreaks in South America and Europe.

As of August 29, there were 4,650 consecutive cases of the mu variant in 39 countries, but the WHO reports that it is responsible for 39 percent of cases in Colombia and 13 percent of cases in Ecuador, although there are sequence restrictions in both countries.

The World Health Organization said preliminary data indicates it has a similar vaccine response compared to the beta variant. There is some evidence that vaccines don’t work well against the beta variant, leading some countries to restrict travel to and from South Africa, where it was first reported.

However, the World Health Organization said more research is needed.

“The epidemiology of the mu variant in South America, especially with the co-circulation of the delta variant, will be monitored for changes,” the WHO wrote in the report.

The World Health Organization is currently monitoring five different types of interests, eta (targeted in multiple countries), iota (US), kappa (India), lambda (Peru) and nu mu.

Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta are all worrisome variables.

The World Health Organization started naming variants with the Greek alphabet in May to make them easier to understand, while removing the stigma of previous labels, which focused on the country of origin of the variants.

File from Reuters

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