Last month, the World Health Organization (WHO) appointed Mu a "interesting variant." Now the strain has been observed in about 40 countries, including Finland.
The World Health Organization (WHO) approached Mua after she reported that it has "a set of mutations that indicate the potential properties of immune deficiency" which need to be further examined.
However, the Finnish virologist said that Mu is unlikely to pose additional threats compared to other alternatives.
"Any variation that may escape the protection provided by a previous infection or the immunity provided by the vaccine is potentially worrying or one that we need to monitor — and so is Mu." said Professor of Virology at the University of Turku Ilkka Julkunen.
The variant was first identified in Colombia earlier this year. A few cases of Mu have been reported in Finland since the summer.
Julkunen noted that studies have shown that two doses of the vaccine provide adequate protection to prevent serious cases of Covid.
"More than 90 percent of fully vaccinated people do not develop serious infections, so in this sense, vaccines offer plenty of protection against variants. It is very likely that this Mu variant is the same, so it does not indicate a significant additional risk or concern compared to other mutations," he explained, adding that it was still too early to know how widely this position would spread.
The Delta variant of Covid-19, originally reported in India, is still the predominant mutation in Finland at present. It has been identified in 95% of the samples submitted for sequencing in the last two months.
In Finland, genome sequencing is currently performed on about 10-15% of positive samples.
Source: The Nordic Page