South America is focus of attention for World Health Organisation

CONTENT

Recently the World Health Organisation added another variant of the coronavirus to its watch list, this deadly variant is called (Mu), and has been designated as a variant of concern, so the WHO has decided to set up a mechanism to monitor the behaviour of this new variant.

It is argued that when the WHO labels a variant of concern, it is basically because it has genetic differences with the other known variants, and additionally causes infections in multiple countries, so it could pose a particular threat to public health in certain regions with poor sanitary controls.

According to data released by the WHO, the Mu variant was first identified by sight in Colombia earlier this year, and was given the designation B.1621, since then it has been detected in 40 other countries globally, but is currently believed to be responsible for 0.1% of infections worldwide, more, however, than that percentage is concentrated in South American countries.

Source / Author: Miroslava Chrienova, 2020

One fact to bear in mind, in order to know how dangerous the MU variant is, is that this variant is more transmissible than the currently dominant variant, delta, and can therefore cause much more serious health damage, mainly because of its potential for more rapid transmission.

Hence, relaxing some measures against the new coronavirus pandemic in South American countries on the assumption that everything is back to normal is a serious mistake.