A professor of biological Sciences at the University of Cyprus and Laboratory head if Biotechnology and Molecular Virology, Leondios Kostrikis has said, a strain that merges both the Delta and the Omicron together is found in Cyprus.
“There are currently omicron and delta co-infections and we found this strain that is a combination of these two,” said Kostrikis in an interview. The strain is named as “Deltacron” due to the presence of Omicron generic signatures in Delta genome.
Total 25 cases have been identified by Kostrikis and his team. According to the figures, the strain is being found more in the patients hospitalized rather those are not.
The 25 samples of Deltacron were sent to GISAID, which is an international database to track the changes in the virus.
“We will see in the future if this strain is more pathological or more contagious or if it will prevail” said the professor on Deltacron, but with this he even expressed his opinion that the strain may diminish due to the highly transmissible omicron variant.
