NICOSIA – Amid the disastrous spread of the Omicron variant which put intense pressure on global health care, a new variant of the novel disease, that is a combination of the delta and omicron variants, has been discovered in the Middle Eastern Island country.
A senior virologist at the University of Cyprus shared the new findings of the strain that is a combination of omicron and delta co-infections.
The new variant was dubbed as ‘deltacron’ after omicron-like genetic signatures were found in the delta genomes. At least 25 cases of the new strain have been detected, while officials said it is too early to say how damaging the new strain might be.
Earlier, scientists believed that recent findings of new variants are a result of laboratory contamination however the virologist told a US publication that these mutations are not the result of a single recombination event.
It was revealed that the new variant is found among patients hospitalized due to infection than among non-hospitalized patients.
Omicron and delta variants have mutations in the spike protein that affect their ability to enter human cells, with omicron becoming more infectious as a result.
The unseen variant of novel disease arises when there are multiple variants of a pathogen circulating. Researchers earlier claimed that they found another variant named IHU in France however, World Health Organization said the IHU variant had not become much of a threat.
‘IHU’: New vaccine-resistant variant of Covid found in France as world battles Omicron
Meanwhile, Flurona cases have also been reported in parts of the world in which the person contracted COVID-19 and the influenza virus at the same time.
