Even as the world struggles to come to grips with the coronavirus’ Omicron variant, news about the emergence of another highly-mutated variant spread on Tuesday, raising fears over yet another wave of infections. The B.1.640 variant has mostly been found in France so far, although several other countries have also detected a few cases. The variant is said to have 46 mutations, including some in its spike protein.
NOT A NEW VARIANT
The B.1.640 is not a new variant and has been around for three months at least. The sudden discussion around the mutation followed the circulation of a week-old study by researchers at the Méditerranée Infection in Marseille, part of France’s Instituts hospitalo-universitaires (University Hospital Institutes or IHU).
The study reports that the variant was detected in November among 12 people in southeastern France, the first of whom had returned from Cameroon. The researchers said the variant was similar to the one they had earlier found and named IHU.
The IHU variant the researchers mentioned in the study is the B.1.640 which, global databases suggest, was discovered last January. The one that the French researchers in November has now been classified as B.1.640.2, a sub-lineage.
NO RAPID SPREAD
A website tracking different variants in genome sequencing databases — outbreak.info — reported that at least 400 B.1.640 infections had been identified so far in at least 19 countries. One of these sequences is from India — the only one from around 90,000 sequences from India deposited in global databases.
The highest number of sequences of the B.1.640 variant has been found in France, which has reported 287 confirmed cases. There are 17 cases in Germany and 16 in the United Kingdom. But the variant appears to be the most prevalent in Congo, where 39 of 454 genome sequences belong to the lineage.
The World Health Organization (WHO) in November classified the B.1.640 as a variant under monitoring, the entry-level categorisation of a mutation worth keeping an eye out for.
NOT YET A CONCERN
While the variant’s large number of significant mutations has piqued researchers’ interest, the B.1.640 is not spreading at an unnerving rate — especially not as alarming as the Omicron. According to outbreak.info, the variant was last detected on December 25.
Vinod Scaria, a scientist at the Delhi-based Institute of Genomic and Integrative Biology, tweeted on Tuesday that given the evidence, there was nothing to worry too much about at this time. However, it is something that needs to be monitored closely during the coming weeks, he added.
Financial Express is now on Telegram. 
