A Texas hospital has reported its first case of the Lambda variant of the pathogen that causes COVID-19, according to multiple media outlets. As of Monday morning, at least one patient at Houston Methodist Hospital was confirmed to be infected with the Lambda variant, according to a hospital spokesperson, as reported by KHOU11. Houston Methodist Hospital CEO Marc Bloom wrote in an email to staff, obtained by the Houston Chronicle, that as of Monday, the hospital was treating 184 COVID-19 patients, with around 85 percent of them infected with the Delta variant. The Lambda variant, dubbed C.37, was first identified in Peru last year before spreading to multiple countries in South America. It has been deemed a “variant of interest” by the World Health Organization (WHO), which in a recent report (pdf) indicated that 81 percent of COVID-19 cases sequenced in Peru since April 2021 are associated with Lambda. In the …