France has raised the alarm to a new Coronavirus variant called IHU even as the world battles the highly contagious and mutated Omicron variant of COVID-19 after recording at least 12 cases.
This follows Israel’s first case of rare double infection of Covid-19 and Influenza, Flurona.
The new strain, B.1.640.2, was identified by scientists at the institute IHU Méditerranée Infection in Marseille, a city in France.
According to reports, the new stain contains 46 mutations, more than Omicron.
The variant is yet to be spotted in other countries or labelled a variant under investigation by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
The unit head that discovered the new strain, Prof. Philippe Colson, said, “We indeed have several cases of this new variant in the Marseille geographical area. We named it ‘variant IHU’. Two new genomes have just been submitted.
