“Currently Omicron and Delta are co-infections,” said the professor at the University of Cyprus.
According to Leondios Kostrikis, Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Cyprus and Head of the Laboratory of Biotechnology and Molecular Virology, a strain of Covid-19, which combines Delta and Omicron, was found in Cyprus.
“Currently Omicron and Delta are co-infections and we’ve got this strain which is a combination of these two,” Kostrikis said in an interview with Sigma TV on Friday. He said the discovery was named “deltachron” because of the identification of an omicron-like genetic signature within the delta genome.
Kostrikis and his team have identified 25 such cases and statistical analysis shows that the relative frequency of combined infections is higher in patients hospitalized due to COVID-19 than in non-hospitalized patients. Sequences of 25 DeltaCron cases were sent to GISAID, the international database that tracks changes in the virus, on January 7.
“We will see in the future whether this strain is more pathological or more infectious or if it will prevail” on Delta and O’Micron, he said. But his personal view is that this strain will also be displaced by the highly infectious Omicron variant.
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