European Medicines Agency considers Mu variant “potentially worrying”

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) said on Thursday that the Mu variant of the coronavirus, detected for the first time in Colombia and considered of “interest” by the World Health Organization (WHO), is “potentially disturbing”, although there is still no data to indicate whether it will become predominant in the delta.

Although it focuses on studying the Delta variant, due to its high transmissibility, EMA has also examines “other variants that may spread, like the Lambda (identified in Peru) and, more recently, the Mu“said Marco Cavaleri, head of vaccine strategy at the European regulatory body, as reported by the AFP news agency.

“The [variante] Mu could be potentially more worrying, as it could show a possible risk of immunoevasion or vaccine resistance, ”Cavaleri added.

The EMA will discuss with vaccine research centers the efficacy of drugs against this variant.

However, Cavaleri stressed: “Always we have no data showing that the Mu variant also spreads widely or has the potential to outperform the Delta variant as a dominant strain. “

All viruses, also SARS-CoV-2, responsible for covid-19, are constantly mutating; most of these modifications have little or no impact about the characteristics of the virus, but some can affect how it spreads, the severity of the disease, or the effectiveness of treatments and vaccines.

Currently, WHO identifies as worrisome variants (VOC) at Delta (first identified in India and causing new waves of pandemics in many countries around the world), the Alpha (detected in UK), Beta (from South Africa) and the Gamma (from Manaus).

VOCs are the variants that are associated with one or more of the following changes to a significant degree: increased transmissibility or detrimental change in the epidemiology of covid-19; increased virulence or change in the clinical presentation of the disease; and / or reduction in the effectiveness of social measures, diagnostic tools, vaccines or treatments available.

In addition, WHO has defined the existence of interesting variants (VOI), that his Mu (identified for the first time in Colombia), Iota and Eta (from California), Kappa (another from India) and Lambda (known as the Andean variant, first identified in Peru and quite predominant in Latin America).

VOIs are those who present changes in the genome which has been shown or is likely to affect the characteristics of the virus, such as its transmissibility, the severity of the disease it causes and its ability to escape the action of the immune system, to be detected by diagnostic means or to be attacked for drugs.

With information from Telam.

LGP