Researcher discovers Covid variant that combines Omicron and Delta
A researcher in Cyprus has discovered a strain of coronavirus that appears to have combined the Delta and Omicron variants.
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A researcher in Cyprus has discovered a strain of coronavirus that combines the Delta and Omicron variants.
Leondios Kostrikis, professor of biological sciences at the University of Cyprus, has named the strain “Deltacron,” because of its Omicron-like genetic signatures within the Delta genomes, Bloomberg reporteD.
Until now, Professor Kostrikis and his research team have found 25 cases of the virus, according to the report.
It is not yet known if there are more cases of the strain in the community or what impacts it could have.
Kostrikis, who is also head of the Laboratory of Biotechnology and Molecular Virology said in an interview with Sigma TV:
“There are currently omicron and delta co-infections and we found this strain that is a combination of these two”.
Kostrikis and his team’s statistical analysis shows that the relative frequency of the combined infection is higher among patients hospitalised for Covid-19 as compared to non-hospitalised patients.
On 7 January the sequences of the 25 Deltacron cases were sent to disease prevention initiative GISAID, the international database that tracks changes in the virus.
“We will see in the future if this strain is more pathological or more contagious or if it will prevail” over Delta and Omicron, Kostrikis said.
According to Bloomberg, the professor predicted this strain will eventually be displaced by the highly contagious Omicron variant.
However, virologist Tom Peacock said on social media that Deltacron may not be an actual variant, but possibly a result of contamination.
“So when new variants come through sequencing lab, contamination isn’t that uncommon (very very tiny volumes of liquid can cause this) - just usually these fairly clearly contaminated sequences are not reported by major media outlets,” he explained.
“Lots of reports of Omicron sequences carrying Delta-like mutations (eg P681R or L452R). Although a subset of these might end up being real, the vast majority will most likely turn out to be contamination or coinfection. No clear signals of anything real or nasty happening (yet).”
In a thread he posted starting 21 December he said: “True recombinants don’t tend to appear until a few weeks/months after there’s been substancial co-circulation - we’re only a couple of weeks into Omicron - I really doubt there are any prevelent recombinants yet...”
Small update: the Cypriot 'Deltacron' sequences reported by several large media outlets look to be quite clearly contamination - they do not cluster on a phylogenetic tree and have a whole Artic primer sequencing amplicon of Omicron in an otherwise Delta backbone.
— Tom Peacock (@PeacockFlu) January 8, 2022
It also should be noted that Deltacron is not an official name beyond its use by Kostrikis and the media.
Prior to this, the word Delmicron became popular to denote a combination of Delta and Omicron, but neither Delmicron or Deltacron have yet been recognised by the WHO as officially acknowledged variants.
Originally published as Researcher discovers Covid variant that combines Omicron and Delta
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