Cyprus, (Europe Brief News). Social media was recently lively that scientists in Cyprus claimed to have found a new hybrid variant of SARS-CoV-2,known as Deltacron.
Named Deltacron, it appears to be a combination of the Delta and Omicron variants.
However, other experts have questioned whether this is truly a new variant, suggesting the finding may be due to contamination during laboratory testing.
The new variant was first discovered in Cyprus on January 7, 2022. The variant, named Deltacron, is said to be a hybrid of Delta and Omicron.
Cyprus’s health minister, Michalis Hadjipandelas, was quick to point out that there is nothing to concern about at that point and that the sequence moved to GISAID, an open access database that tracks developments in the coronavirus.
The discovery of the new variant started trending on Twitter, but experts immediately advised caution.
WHO Comment
The World Health Organization’s (WHO) COVID-19 expert, Dr Krutika Kuppalli, explained on Twitter that there was no such thing as “Deltacron” and that this was likely a “lab contamination of Omicron fragments in a Delta specimen”.
The overriding opinion was that this was not a new variant but most likely a case of laboratory contamination.
The mutations did not appear to have a recombinant pattern, they explained. They further suggest that Omicron and Delta had not merged their genetic material, despite both circulating widely.
This increases the chances of their genetic material becoming mixed as they begin to multiply inside the cells. In such a case, the new recombinant variant would include genetic material from both variants.
Thankfully, this does not appear to have happened yet, but it is not impossible.
The best way to reduce the variants merging to form recombinant variants is to drive down community infection numbers.
