Experts are now casting doubt on the new ‘Deltacron’ strain discovered by a researcher in Cyprus.
Over the weekend it was reported Leondios Kostrikis, professor of biological sciences at the University of Cyprus, has discovered a new strain of Covid that combines Omicron and Delta dubbed “Deltacron,” according to Bloomberg News.
“There are currently omicron and delta co-infections and we found this strain that is a combination of these two,” Kostrikis said in an interview with Sigma TV Friday.
Now the so-called experts are saying the ‘Deltacron’ variant is likely due to a lab error.
CNBC reported:
Global health experts are casting doubts over reports of a new possible Covid-19 mutation that appeared to be a combination of both the delta and omicron variants, dubbed as “deltacron,” saying it’s more likely that the “strain” is the result of a lab processing error.
Deltacron ‘not real’
Some experts have since cast doubt over the findings, with one World Health Organization official tweeting Sunday that “deltacron,” which was trending on the social media platform on the weekend, is “not real” and “is likely due to sequencing artifact,” a variation introduced by a nonbiological process.
WHO Covid expert Dr. Krutika Kuppalli said on Twitter that, in this case, there was likely to have been a “lab contamination of Omicron fragments in a Delta specimen.”
Other scientists have agreed that the findings could be the result of a lab error, with virologist Dr. Tom Peacock from Imperial College London also tweeting that “the Cypriot ‘Deltacron’ sequences reported by several large media outlets look to be quite clearly contamination.”
“Flurona” is likely fake too.
Okay people let’s make this a teachable moment, there is no such thing as #Deltacron (Just like there is no such thing as #Flurona) #Omicron and #Delta did NOT form a super variant
This is likely sequencing artifact (lab contamination of Omicron fragments in a Delta specimen) https://t.co/DDvM24bt9g
— Krutika Kuppalli, MD FIDSA (@KrutikaKuppalli) January 9, 2022