With the World Health Organization adding the new COVID strain “mu” to its list of “interested” variants, senior health officials said on Thursday that it currently does not pose a “direct threat” to the United States.
The White House’s chief medical adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said at a press conference: “We are paying attention to it. We take everything seriously, but we don’t think it is a direct threat now.”
Variant B.1.621, also called mu, was added to WHO Watch List on Monday. It is one of five interesting variants added to the list of the International Health Organization since March 2021.
The list includes variants that have been determined to cause significant “community transmission” and a risk of “increased number of cases over time”, which may result in different severity and transmission compared to other strains.
“This variant has a series of mutations, indicating that it will evade certain antibodies, not only monoclonal antibodies, but also antibodies induced by vaccines and convalescent serum,” Fauci said. “But there is not a lot of clinical data to show this, mainly in vitro laboratory data.”
Fauci added that although the current vaccine was made using the original COVID-19 strain, it still provided strong protection against the current variant.
CNBC says The Delta variant has been on the World Health Organization’s watch list until May when it was reclassified due to a major outbreak in the United States
Fauci said that, unlike the Delta variant, mu “has not even come close to dominance” in the United States.
The WHO stated that Mu was added to the WHO watch list after it was found in 39 countries that Mu had “a series of mutations indicating the potential for immune escape”.
This new variant was first discovered in Colombia. It now accounts for less than 0.1% of global Covid infections, but it has a greater impact in Colombia and Ecuador, They accounted for 39% and 13% of Covid cases, respectively.
