WHO Official Downplays The New COVID-19 Variant First Found in France

Ever since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the virality and adaptiveness of the virus has been vividly exhibited in the numerous variants that the world had to combat with, waves at a time.

In early December 2021, a new variant called B.1640.2, now nicknamed IHU after the IHU Méditerrannée Infection that first discovered it from a traveller returning to France from Cameroon, South Africa, has been recently made known to the world.

A World Health Organisation (WHO) official by the name of Abdi Muhamad declared during a Geneva press briefing on Tuesday (4 Jan) that the variant “had been on our radar”, though he proceeds to downplay its possible threat, despite what little is known about the IHU variant thus far.

History Repeating Itself?

Not to sound like a pessimist, but Mr Muhamad’s words seems to strike a common chord to an eerily similar narrative from Jan 2020, where WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus had made light of what was the past Wuhan COVID epidemic, stating that it was not “a global health threat yet”, even though cases had been rearing its head in countries like Asia regions and the United States.

Even deep into March 2020, WHO had been hesitant to call out COVID-19 for what it was, with Dr Tedros simply telling reporters that “the threat of a pandemic has become very real” instead of urging for more preventive measures to be taken.   

America had committed the same mistake of hubris and complacency: Anthony Fauci, the Director of the Centres for Control and Prevention had told the White House that COVID-19 was “nothing to worry about” and “it was not a major threat”.

Alas, look at where it has landed all of us now?

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Despite What Little is Known

At the very least, Mr Muhamad had also stated that the IHU Variant is under investigation.

The IHU Variant is understandably not WHO’s greatest cause of concern right now, nor any countries’ really, especially when they are wrangling with the twin threat of Delta and Omicron Variant COVD cases running rampant.

Yet, it feels somewhat frustrating that an unknown variant is being downplayed, even if the 12 people that were identified with the IHU variant in the Southern Alps, France, had only showed mild symptoms and were brought under control.

However, at the issue at hand is that besides the knowledge that the IHU Variant has 46 new mutations and 36 deletions—with N501Y mutation and E484K mutation which increases the infectiveness and its escape mechanisms against the human immunity system respectively being in the mix. Also, its virological, epidemical or clinical features have yet to be identified.

If the IHU Variant genuinely emerged from Cameroon, South Africa, where only 2.4% of its population is vaccinated as statistics from John Hopkins University in Baltimore show, then it’s unknown how many people might actually harbour the IHU variant.

Even then, we can only hope for the best instead of worst as we are fumbling in the dark about this new variant cropping up, while ensuring that we ourselves are adequately protected and vaccinated.

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