Deltacron: New COVID variant or lab mistake?
Source: Deutsche Welle
Deltacron: New COVID variant or lab mistake?
A researcher in Cyprus claims to have found a new coronavirus variant that combines characteristics of delta and omicron. Other researchers have their doubts. But the Cypriot scientist has doubled down on his discovery.
Date 10.01.2022
Author Carla Bleiker
Even if you've become somewhat numb to the constant onslaught of COVID-19 news, this might have caught your attention over the weekend: A University of Cyprus-based researcher said he had discovered a new strain of the coronavirus that combines characteristics of the delta and omicron variants.
Leonidos Kostrikis and his team have identified 25 cases of what the professor of biological sciences and head of the Laboratory of Biotechnology and Molecular Virology is calling "deltacron."
Omicron is highly contagious and has become the dominant variant of SARS-CoV-2 in many countries, including the UK and the US. Delta was the dominant variant worldwide over the summer. Infected patients had a significantly higher risk of hospitalization than those with the alpha variant of the virus. Deltacron, according to Kostrikis, has omicronlike genetic signatures within the delta genome.
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Pushback after claim of contamination
"The Cypriot 'Deltacron' sequences reported by several large media outlets look to be quite clearly contamination," Thomas Peacock, a research associate at Imperial College London's Barclay Laboratory, which focuses on coronavirus research, wrote on Twitter Saturday. In another tweet, he added that "this is not really related to 'quality of the lab' or anything similar - this literally happens to every sequencing lab occasionally!"
Link to tweet
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Read more: https://www.dw.com/en/deltacron-new-covid-variant-or-lab-mistake/a-60381928