French researchers say the new variant contains 46 mutations which may make it more resistant to vaccines and more transmissible.
Covid-19 has infected more than 262M people and killed over 5.2M. Here are the virus-related developments for November 29:
New cases were confirmed in Australia, Germany, UK and Italy, while Israel closes its borders to all foreigners in a bid to stem the spread of the new Omicron variant of the coronavirus.
The UN organisation said it could take several weeks to complete studies of the new variant and that the number of Omicron cases appeared to be increasing in almost all provinces of South Africa.
The World Health Organization declared the new coronavirus variant "Mu" as a "variant of interest."
The rise in infections come as a leaked internal CDC document found fully immunised people with so-called breakthrough infections of the Delta variant can spread the disease as easily as unvaccinated people.
WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan says B 1.617 coronavirus variant has some mutations which increase transmission, and which also potentially could make it resistant to antibodies.
The Covid-19 pandemic has infected more than 103 million people around the world, with over 2.2 million fatalities. Here are developments for February 2:
On Friday, United Kingdom officials announced that the new coronavirus variant may have a higher mortality rate than the original strain.
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