Kaya News Reporter
A new ‘variant’ of Covid-19, Deltacron has been detected in Cyprus. The strain is said to be a combination of the Delta and Omicron variants.
The discovery was made by a Cypriot scientist, Leonidos Kostrikis who says the mutation was a result of evolutionary pressure.
Leondios Kostrikis is the head of the laboratory of biotechnology and molecular virology at the University of Cyprus.
He defends the discovery of the latest variant in 25 patients and claims theories of a lab contamination are unfounded.
Since the discovery 11 of the 25 patients infected with Deltacron have been hospitalized. The other 14 remain in the general public.
It remains unclear if Deltacron is a more dangerous strain than its parent variants.
Kostrikis named his discovery “Deltacron” due to the identification of Omicron-like genetic signatures within the Delta genomes.
Multiple virologists have weighed in on the possibility of a new variant, calling it nothing more than a contamination error.
Tome Peacock, a virologist with Imperial College London said it’s likely the samples from the 25 patients were all sequenced in the same lab on the same day they had a contamination issue.
“Deltacron is a scariant. One less thing to worry about,” tweeted molecular biologist Eric Topol.
Also read: Threat of new Covid-19 variant detected in France



