“Deltacron”: is it a laboratory error or a new variant of COVID-19?

For a week, the word “deltacron” attracted attention in the world for the combination of variants of COVID-19. Especially since its presumed existence and rapid spread could worsen the state of the new waves of the pandemic.

However, scientists now believe that it could be a contamination problem in the Cyprus laboratory where the research was carried out and not a worrisome strain.

According to DW, Leonidos Kostrikis, professor of biological sciences at the University of Cyprus, stated that he and his colleagues identified 25 cases of “deltacron”, Describing this strain as “The genetic background of the delta variant along with some of the omicron mutations.”

It was a mistake?

It is possible that the genetics of coronavirus combine but it is rare. That is why the scientific community analyzes the discovery, although it considers it unlikely.

“The sequences of the Cypriot ‘deltacron’ reported by various major media outlets appear to be clearly contamination”said Tom Peacock, a virologist from the department of infectious diseases at Imperial College London.

For his part, Jeffrey Barrett, director of the COVID-19 Genomic Initiative at the Wellcome Sanger Institute in Great Britain, said that the alleged mutations could be part of the genome that is vulnerable to errors in certain sequencing procedures. “I am sure it is not a biological recombinant of the delta and omicron lineages.”He added on Monday.

Kostrikis, reaffirmed his position and assured the Bloomberg agency that the cases identified “Indicate an evolutionary pressure for an ancestral strain to acquire these mutations and not the result of a single recombination event”.

The WHO infectious disease epidemiologist, Mary of Kerkhove, also made a call on social networks not to use words such as “deltacron”, “flurone” or “flurone”, as that implied a combination of viruses or variants.

While a person may have COVID-19 and flu at the same time, that does not mean that the two viruses are combined.