Researchers have found a new type of Covid virus called Ihu

A new type of COVID-19 was identified a few weeks ago by French researchers, derived from another person whose first cases were discovered in the Republic of the Congo in September last year.

The Institute of University Hospital Marseille, at the origin of this discovery, announced on December 9 on Twitter that it had named this variant by its initials Ihu.

In late December, its researchers published a pre-study, still awaiting peer validation, on an “Ihu variant” called B.1.640.2, about which very little is known, given the limited number of recorded cases. .

According to this center specialized in infectious diseases, created and directed by the controversial doctor Didier Raoult, the first such case identified by scientists occurred in the town of Forcalquier, in the Alpes de Haute Provence.

Other cases have been recorded in the Marseille region and are linked to trips to Cameroon.

This variant contains 46 mutations, more than an omicron, and is one of two B.1,640 derivatives identified in late September in the Republic of the Congo.

One of the distinguishing elements of the “Ihu variant is that one of its mutations is associated with a possible increase in transmission of the virus.”