Coronavirus: United States “closely” monitors Mu variant, but sees no “immediate threat”

The Chief Epidemiologist of the United States Government, Anthony Fauci, assured this Thursday that they were monitoring “closely” the Mu variant, identified last January in Colombia, but indicated that they did not consider it “an immediate threat at the moment”.

“We pay attention to it, we take it all seriously, but we do not consider this to be an immediate threat at this time“Fauci said at a White House COVID-19 response team press conference.

The Mu variant, which has been detected in 39 countries, was considered “of interest” by the World Health Organization (WHO), which implies that you will be followed to see if you have any mutations that may modify the way it is transmitted, make it more virulent, or reduce the effectiveness of vaccines currently used to prevent the coronavirus.

Fauci pointed out that the presence of this variable in the country is “not even close to being dominant”, Unlike the Delta variant which, he pointed out, is dominant in “over 99%” of US territory.

The official assured that the Mu variant “has a constellation of mutations which suggests it would escape certain antibodies, not just monoclonal antibodies, but vaccine-induced antibodies and convalescent serum.”

However, he pointed out that the vaccines “are still quite effective against the variants”.

On Wednesday, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) reported that the Mu variant has been detected in Colombia and with “sporadic” community transmission in Costa Rica and Ecuador.

What we know so far

The variant Mu, which was first detected in Colombia earlier this year, received its name last Monday by the United Nations health agency.

They gave it this name because since last May the variants are named with the letters of the Greek alphabet. Mu is the twelfth letter of this alphabet, although for the Royal Spanish Academy it is called Mi. The Mu variant has already been detected in 39 countries. Although its global prevalence has declined and is currently below 0.1%, its prevalence in Colombia has dropped to 39% and Ecuador to 13%.

WHO COVID-19 technical director Maria van Kerkhove said on Twitter that 4,500 feeds from 39 countries had been uploaded. It means that at least 4,500 people worldwide have been infected and diagnosed with the Mu variant.

As, the virology researcher at the National Institute of Agricultural Technology and at the National University of Cordoba, Humberto Debat, commented that “it exhibits mutations in the Spiga protein with important implications on the level of infectivity and immune evasion / evasion, such as N501Y and E484K. It also includes the P681H mutation which makes cell entry more efficient and is associated with greater infectivity ”.

According to Dr Debat, so far only “There are two scientific papers on the Mu variant, so we don’t know much more than we know. What is clear is its nascent expansion in the South American region, since it represents at least 13% of cases in Ecuador and 14% in Chile ”.

“This expansion and increase in the frequency of the Mu variant in Chile is significant warned Dr Debat, it is therefore necessary to be attentive to its follow-up and to new studies on this variant ”.

(With information from EFE)

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