Covid-19: a variant named "Henri-Mondor", discovered in Créteil, is actively circulating in France

If the British variant now represents nearly 80% of contaminations in France, researchers continue to scrutinize with the greatest attention the possible appearances of new variants of SARS-CoV-2.

The teams from the virology laboratory and the “Genomics” platform of the Henri-Mondor AP-HP hospital have just recently discovered a new variant, called the “Henri Mondor” variant, announces the Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris (AP -HP) in a press release released this Tuesday evening.

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This variant was initially detected within a cluster made up of three hospital professionals and the spouse of one of them, it is specified.

"It is characterized by the presence of 2 deletions and 18 amino acid mutations, of which 7 to 8 are located at key positions of the" spike "protein, involved in the entry of the virus into cells", can we read.

Contagiousness in question

Already, the Henri Mondor variant seems to have spread across the country.

It has in fact been detected at several points in France, in Île-de-France, in the south-east and in the south-west of France.

“Its detection frequency has continued to increase since then with the identification of several clusters and it is more and more frequently found in samples tested by the Henri-Mondor AP-HP hospital platform,” the press release further indicates.

In the Flash 4 survey of March 2, 2021, the “Henri Mondor” variant represented 1.8% of the strains sequenced on national territory.

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Is it more dangerous, or more contagious?

Further studies should make it possible to determine this.

There is no indication at this stage that this is indeed the case.

Let us add that at this stage, the variant is categorized as a variant of interest.

It is therefore closely monitored but and could join the variants placed "under surveillance" or said to be "of concern".

One point, however, arouses the attention of researchers.

The Henri Mondor variant “targets neutralizing antibodies induced by natural infection or vaccination.

The N501Y and L452R mutations, already observed on other viral variants, seem to improve the interaction of the “spike” protein with its receptor and decrease the action of neutralizing antibodies, ”adds the AP-HP press release.

Researchers are eagerly awaiting the results of the next flash investigation to find out whether or not the spread of the variant is tending to increase.

“Is this number of cases going to increase?

Or will this variant end up being suffocated by the other variants?

This is a question that we can only answer with time, in the weeks to come, ”said Professor Jean-Michel Pawlotsky to France Inter, whose teams are at the origin of the discovery.