IHU COVID-19 variant detected in France not a variant of concern –expert

A COVID-19 variant recently detected in France is not a variant of concern, according to infectious disease expert Dr. Edsel Salvana on Thursday.

Salvana, who is also an adviser for the Department of Health, said in the Talk To The People briefing led by President Rodrigo Duterte that the World Health Organization has been monitoring the IHU variant, as is it called.

“IHU is the name of the institute in France po that described the particular lineage of the virus, and the WHO has been monitoring it since November last year,” he said.

“So far marami po siyang mutations pero wala naman siyang pinapakitang parang survival advantage or immune evasion na nakikita natin sa Delta or Omicron,” Salvaña added.

(So far it has a lot of mutations but it doesn't show anything like survival advantage or immune evasion that we see in Delta or Omicron.)

“It is a variant that has been monitored but it is not yet as concerning as Omicron or Delta or even the other ones po,” he said. “We will continue to monitor this po, but right now I think our attention really has to be on Delta and Omicron because this is really creating havoc all over the world.”

In a briefing with reporters in Geneva on Tuesday, Dr. Abdi Mahamud, incident manager for the WHO's COVID-19 Incident Management Support Team, said that the variant has been on the WHO's radar since November 2021, and that it is not considered a variant of concern. 

“Yes, we are monitoring and we are aware [of] it. That virus had a lot of chances to pick up,” Mahamud said. — BM, GMA News