Case of Mu COVID variant that may escape vaccines found in these states

The Mu COVID-19 variant, which some scientists fear may escape vaccines, has been detected in the vast majority of states in the United States, although it accounts for less than 1% of total cases in the United States.

The World Health Organization (WHO) called the Mu strain a variant of interest on Monday, the fifth variant to achieve the designation. Authorities’ concerns about the variant stem from its mutations, which indicate that it could potentially escape vaccines, and although cases are low, the WHO noted in a report that they are steadily increasing in Colombia, from where she is from, and Ecuador. .

All but three of the U.S. states, Nebraska, Vermont, and South Dakota, have reported cases of the Mu variant, according to Outbreak.info, an open-source database from Scripps Research. It was most prevalent in Alaska, where it made up about 4 percent of the nearly 4,000 samples.

Fifteen states – Maine, New Hampshire, West Virginia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, North Dakota, Montana, and Oklahoma – have had 10 or fewer cases.

Twenty-four states have had between 11 and 50 cases and four – New York, New Jersey, Texas and Washington – have had as many as 100 cases. A single state, Florida, has had between 100 and 200 cases, and California has had the most with 289 cases, according to Outbreak.info.

Since its identification in January, the WHO noted that there had been “a few sporadic reports” of cases of the Mu variant. While the properties of its mutations lend themselves to the hypothesis that the variant could infect people who have natural immunity to COVID-19 or who have been vaccinated against the virus, more research is needed to confirm if it is. the case. It is also possible that monoclonal antibody treatments, which have shown promising results in patients, may not work as well against the Mu strain.

Mutations in SARS-CoV-2 are expected to occur because it is natural for a virus to evolve over time. Currently, the WHO is tracking four worrisome variants – Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta – all of which are either more transmissible, cause more serious disease, or decrease the effectiveness of public health measures, including vaccines and treatments.

Delta, which was listed as a variant of concern in May, is the dominant strain in the United States and is fueling large-scale epidemics among unvaccinated individuals. In addition to the four variants of concern, the WHO is monitoring five variants of interest – Eta, Iota, Kappa, Lambda and Mu – as they all have genetic modifications that could make them more heritable or dangerous to humans and have been shown to be cause multiple clusters. in many countries.

Although vaccines are never 100% effective, vaccines approved for use have proven to be an excellent weapon against the contraction of COVID-19 and in preventing people from becoming seriously ill if they test positive. However, health officials fear that if the virus continues to circulate without attenuation, a variant will emerge that is resistant to vaccines.

If one variant succeeds in rendering vaccines ineffective, scientists would need to create a new vaccine and countries would have to revaccinate their populations. A major challenge given the extraordinary effort it took to reach the current level of vaccination, this would prolong the pandemic, extending the human and economic toll of the crisis.