The World Health Organisation (WHO) has designated a new coronavirus strain, named Mu, as a variant of interest.
Mu, or B.1.621, was first identified in Colombia in January and cases have been recorded in South America and Europe.
The WHO’s weekly bulletin on the pandemic said the variant has mutations suggesting it could be more resistant to vaccines, as was the case with Beta, but that more studies would be needed to examine this further.
There are currently four coronavirus variants of concern, as deemed by the WHO, with the Alpha variant – first recorded in Kent – seen in 193 countries, Beta in 141, Gamma in 91 and Delta in 170 countries, while Mu is the fifth variant of interest.
