SARS-CoV-2 Iota variant
Variant of the SARS-Cov-2 virus first identified in New York City
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Through SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant
By February 2021, it had spread rapidly in the New York region and accounted for about one in four viral sequences. By 11 April 2021, the variant had been detected in at least 48 U.S. states and 18 countries.
Under the simplified naming scheme proposed by the World Health Organization, B.1.526 has been labeled Iota variant, and is considered a variant of interest (VOI), but not yet a variant of concern.
Mutations
The Iota (B.1.526) genome contains the following amino-acid mutations, all of which are in the virus's spike protein code: L5F, T95I, D253G, E484K, D614G and A701V.
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History
The increase of the Iota variant was captured by researchers at Caltech by scanning for mutations in a database known as GISAID, a global science initiative that has documented over 700,000 genomic sequences of SARS-CoV-2.
The proportion of USA cases represented by the Iota variant had declined sharply by the end of July 2021 as the Delta variant became dominant.