According to experts, a claimed hybrid coronavirus mutation called “Deltacron” identified in a Cyprus laboratory is most certainly the effect of laboratory contamination and it is not a new alarming variant.
The discovery was first announced by Cypriot media on Saturday, with the result having “the genetic background of the Delta variant combined with some of the mutations of Omicron.”
Despite genetically combining coronaviruses being practically possible, it really is unusual, and scientists studying the discovery of “Deltacron” say it is impossible. “The Cypriot ‘Deltacron’ sequences published by multiple prominent media outlets appear to be very definitely contaminated,” Imperial College London dealer Tom Peacock posted on Twitter during the weekend.
The claimed mutations are centered on a part of the genome that is sensitive to an error in specific sequencing procedures, according to Jeffrey Barrett, the head of the COVID-19 Genomics Initiative at the Wellcome Sanger Institute in the United Kingdom.
He stated on Monday that “this is quite undoubtedly not really a biological recombinant of both the Delta and Omicron lineages.”
COVID-19 has been the subject of a barrage of misinformation, much of it spreading online, and scientists are determined to counter it.
Unvalidated claims of a spreading “flurona” or “flurone” virus — a combination of both the flu and the coronavirus — circulated last week, but the World Health Organization (WHO) refuted them on Monday.
“Let’s not use words like Deltacron, flurona, or flurone.” Please,” Maria van Kerkhove, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the World Health Organization, wrote on Twitter.
“The above words indicate a combination of viruses/variants, which is not the prevailing view,” she explained.
Both influenza and coronavirus can affect humans at the same time, however, the two viruses cannot coexist.
In regards to emerging COVID-19 variants like Omicron, which have had a significant impact on the pandemic’s path, occurrences of flu and coronavirus infection are not uncommon.
Ever since the outbreak, the coronavirus has produced dozens of variants, four of which have been labelled “particularly issues” by the World Health Organization: Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Omicron.
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