WHO lists mu as 'variant of interest'

The World Health Organization is monitoring a new coronavirus variant called "mu," known by scientists as B.1.621, and has added it to the list of "variants of interest" because of preliminary evidence it can evade antibodies, report agencies.

Dr Anthony Fauci, the top US infectious disease expert, said the United States was also monitoring the new variant, which was first identified in Colombia in January and now makes up 39% of all cases there.

The WHO says the variant has the potential to evade immunity provided by vaccines and antibodies, and because of that, it was listed as a "variant of interest" on Aug 30.

Still, Fauci said it is not at all common in the United States, where the highly contagious delta variant makes up 99% of all COVID-19 cases. He said the new variant "has a constellation of mutations that suggests it would evade certain antibodies," but there is so far very little clinical data supporting that conclusion.

Fauci added that vaccines are still quite effective against variants with similar characteristics.

"Bottom line, we are paying attention to it," he said. "We take everything like that seriously, but we don't consider it an immediate threat right now."

Meanwhile, the global Covid-19 caseload surpassed 220 million, as the ferocious second wave of the corona pandemic continues to wreak havoc across the world amid mass inoculation efforts.

The total caseload and fatalities stand at 220,164,380 and 4,560,844 respectively, as of Friday evening, according to Worldometers.

More than 5.39 billion doses have been administered across 183 countries, according to data collected by Bloomberg. The latest rate was roughly 41 million doses a day.

The US, which is the world's worst-hit country in terms of both cases and deaths, has so far logged 39,944,270 cases. Besides, 643,594 people have lost their lives in the US to date, as per the JHU data.

The United States is surpassing an average of 160,000 new Covid-19 cases a day due to the spread of the more transmissible Delta variant.

Brazil currently has the world's second-highest pandemic death toll after the United States and the third-largest caseload after the United States and India.

The total caseload rose to 20,830,712 while the death toll stood at 582,004, as of Thursday.

India's Covid-19 tally rose to 32,902,345 on Thursday, while the death toll from the virus mounted to 439,916. Daily new infections have fallen sharply in India since their peak of more than 400,000 in May.

Another report adds: India has granted homegrown drugmaker Biological E permission to begin midstage studies of its COVID-19 vaccine in children and adolescents, according to an official statement on Friday.

The Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) gave the approval to the Hyderabad-based pharmaceutical company on Sept 1, the statement said.

The company will study the safety and tolerability of its vaccine, CORBEVAX, in this population, it added.

So far, six vaccines have been authorized for use in the country where only about 11.28 percent of the entire population has been fully vaccinated so far, according to Johns Hopkins data.

Of these, the COVID-19 shots for adults by Bharat Biotech and Zydus Cadila have been indigenously developed.

In late August, India also approved Cadila's COVID-19 vaccine, the world's first DNA shot against the virus, for emergency use in children aged 12 years and above.

Biological E is also running a late-stage trial of its vaccine in adults.