France detects new COVID-19 variant ‘IHU’, more infectious than Omicron

The new variant — B.1.640.2 — which has been detected in 12 patients near Marseille, contains 46 mutations, making it more resistant to vaccines and infectious .

Even as the world battles the uptick in COVID-19 cases owing to the Omicron variant, scientists in France have found another variant.

The discovery of the variant, dubbed B.1.640.2, was announced in a paper posted on medRxiv.

Called IHU, as of now, the strain was discovered by academics based at the IHU Mediterranee Infection on 10 December.