A new variant of covid-19 has been identified a few weeks ago by French researchers.
This was derived from another and the first cases had been detected in the Republic of the Congo during the past month of September.
The University Hospital Institute of Marseille, at the origin of this discovery, announced on December 9 on its Twitter account that it had baptized this variant with its own acronym, IHU.
The IHU variant
The researchers in charge of this published at the end of last month a pre-study, still pending validation by their peers, on this new variant.
Which was qualified as «variant IHU »named B.1.640.2.
Likewise, there is still little that is known regarding it so far, taking into account the limited number of cases currently registered.
According to this center specialized in infectious diseases, created and directed by the controversial doctor Didier Raoult, the first of these cases found by scientists occurred in the town of Forcalquier.
Town located in the department of Alpes de Haute Provence.
Contains 46 mutations
A dozen are known to be associated with trips to Cameroon in the Marseille region.
This variant contains 46 mutations, that is to say even more than omicron.
Likewise, it is one of the two derived from B.1.640 that had been located at the end of September in the Republic of the Congo.
A peculiar element of the ‘IHU variant is that one of its mutations is associated with a possible increased transmission of the virus.
