JAKARTA - A new COVID-19 variant has been detected, combining mutations from the Omicron and Delta variants for the first time dubbed Deltacron. Although the nickname has not been officially established, cases of this new hybrid variant have been reported in Europe and the United States (US).
The Deltacron case was first confirmed through genome sequencing performed by scientists at IHU Méditerranée Infection in Marseille, France. And according to a paper uploaded to the preprint database medRxiv on Tuesday, March 8th it has also been detected in some parts of France.
Meanwhile, the GISAID international database revealed that Deltacron cases were also found in Denmark and the Netherlands. Separately, two cases have been identified in the US by California-based genetic research firm Helix. In addition, about 30 cases have been identified in the UK.
The scientists explain that the Deltacron variant appears through a process called recombination, when two variants of the virus infect a patient simultaneously, the virus will exchange genetic material to create new offspring.
The backbone of the Deltacron variant, scientists say comes from the Delta variant, while the spike protein that allows the virus to enter host cells, comes from Omicron.
GISAID predicts that the new variant is believed to have been circulating since last January. However, as there are so few confirmed cases, it is too early to know whether the Deltacron infection will be highly contagious or cause severe illness.
In response to this, COVID-19 technical lead for WHO, Maria Von Kerkhove stated that so far scientists have not seen any change in the severity of the new variant compared to the previous variant, but a lot of scientific research is ongoing.
"Unfortunately, we expected to see recombinants because this is what viruses do. They change over time. We saw very intense circulating levels of SARS-Cov-2. We saw this virus infecting animals with the possibility of infecting humans again," Von Kerkhove told the conference. press recently as quoted from Live Science, Saturday, March 12.
Meanwhile, chief scientist at the World Health Organization (WHO) Dr. Soumya Swaminathan tweeted on Tuesday that experimentation was needed to determine the nature of Deltacron.
"We already know that recombinant events can occur, in humans or animals, with different variants of #SARSCoV2 circulating. It is necessary to wait for experiments to determine the nature of this virus," explained Swaminathan.
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