According to a report on Saturday, a team of scientists in Cyprus has identified a strain of coronavirus that apparently combines several characteristics of the Delta and Omicron variants.
bloomberg news said The discovery was nicknamed “Deltakron” because of its identification of an “Omicron-like genetic signature within the delta genome”.
Leondios Kostriakis, professor of biological sciences and head of the Laboratory of Biotechnology and Molecular Virology at the University of Cyprus, told Sigma TV in an interview cited by Bloomberg that 25 such cases have been identified so far.
“Currently Omicron and Delta are co-infections and we found this strain that is a combination of these two,” Kostriakis said.
Kostrikis said that although it was not yet known how contagious or pathological the combined strain was, he believed it was likely to be displaced by the highly infectious Omicron variant.
The Cypriot team has sent information about the joint strain to the GISAID global science initiative, which is tracking the variant.
Leondios Kostrikis interview on November 11, 2021 (Screen Grab/YouTube)
The possible new version came as the Omicron strain increased worldwide.
The World Health Organization said on Thursday that a record 9.5 million COVID-19 cases were reported globally during the past week, a 71% increase from the previous seven-day period. However, the number of deaths recorded weekly declined.
While Omicron seems less serious than the delta version, it has been rapidly replaced, especially among those who have been vaccinated, with WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus cautioning against treating it lightly.
“Like the previous variants, Omicron is hospitalizing people, and it’s killing people,” he said. “In fact, the tsunami of cases is so vast and rapid that it is taking a toll on health systems around the world.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.