The Mu variant of COVID-19 has been confirmed here in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. This is according to an official release from NEMO’s Health Services Subcommittee.
On review of sequencing results for samples sent from SVG to the COVID-19 IMPACT project lab, through CARPHA, five cases of the Mu variant were detected between July 19th, 2021 and August 9th, 2021.
According to the release, all cases were detected within the community as contacts of other positive cases and from persons seeking healthcare.
Mu is the fifth “variant of interest” to be monitored by the WHO since March 2020.
The WHO’s weekly COVID-19 bulletin states that this variant of interest “has a constellation of mutations” that may make it less susceptible to vaccines and immunity from natural infections.
Research and further monitoring will be done to better understand the characteristics of this variant of interest.
