Once again, a supposedly new Corona variant is detected: But how dangerous is the mutation?
+++ 11.45 a.m .: According to experts, the alleged evidence of a mixed variant of Delta and Omikron in Cyprus can be traced back to contamination during the analysis. “These genomes are very likely to be artifacts,” explained Richard Neher from the University of Basel, the leading expert on virus variants, of the dpa.
The omicron mutations that were observed here in connection with delta genome sequences all affect a DNA segment that is often very weak in the case of delta detection and is therefore very susceptible to contamination. Other experts on Twitter, such as WHO expert Maria van Kerkhove, made similar statements: The result is likely to be due to contamination during sequencing. Virologist Tom Peacock from Imperial College in London had already put forward this thesis (see first report).
“It is entirely possible that there are recombinants, but so far no major outbreaks with such variants have been observed,” emphasized Neher. “These genomes from Cyprus are probably not recombinants.” A member of the Greek crisis team for the corona pandemic, Gikas Magiorkinis, also stated that Kostrikis’ conclusions were wrong. “First analyzes show that it is a technical error by the laboratory,” tweeted the epidemiologist. Kostrikis himself, however, initially did not want to admit a misjudgment, he insisted on his results on Monday.
New Corona variant Deltakron discovered
First report from Monday, January 10th, 2022, 8.30 a.m .: Nicosia / London – A new variant of the coronavirus has been discovered in Cyprus. A team of scientists reported at the weekend that it was Deltakron, a mixture of the Delta and the Omicron variant* from Sars-CoV-2, handle. This is reported by the Bloomberg news agency.
Virologist Leondios Kostrikis, a researcher at the University of Cyprus, is behind the variant find. According to his own information, his team was able to decode Deltakron using sequencing. At the beginning of January 2022, the data on Deltakron were finally sent to the international science database “Gisaid”.
“In the future we will see whether this strain is pathological or more contagious, or whether it will prevail over Delta and Omikron,” said Kostrikis. So far, only 25 infections with the Deltakron variant have been found. The data situation is extremely thin: Little is known about the infectiousness and the severity of the disease of Covid-19.
How it led to the emergence of the new corona-Variant * could have come, is meanwhile also unclear. A combination of different strands of variants is considered an option. Virologist Tom Peacock from Imperial College in London put forward another theory following the find. He reported on Twitter about a possible contamination in the laboratory. A new Corona variant was only recently discovered in France. There is hardly any reliable data on this either. According to Peacock, in both cases it is unlikely that “something real or bad” will happen: “There are (yet) no clear indications,” says the virologist. (do) * fr.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA.
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